




























O v 6 °"°* o 



• * 5 A V 

o 1 1 * 

* ~0 A* «■ 




01 ^ * 


> /. 





It'. 

«j\ 

*' • « S - v> <A 

9 ♦ *b jA « 1 ' * * *<£ 

* O ^ * 



„ UVVXN . ° <5 ^ 

/« o» ^U\\vo^ ' v > 

*°*o* 

♦ 'T- V 1 * Y * °-e C\ 

^ *a ^ ^ ^ • 7^. 

0 ^ & * 




6 $ ^ 


*9 • 

♦ rk * 

o. jP j ^ **.;-.• 



V** ^ 


o ♦ a 


«* «f'V -. 

* W-_ 



9' 


V *‘ 




« v ~jy *> 



,0 V V 





r ^0 

; 

. . . •* A °- 

v * v • °* 



■ % ^ 
• A> 

. v -V ^ 

'© • A 

jr *'*hfc.' % '° 


4 


A* ^ 




^ ^ ♦- 
; v-sr 

^ -o.*- 4 G^ \ 

* * <£*. a> o " a *^r\ 

0 •isS^wlr. °o 



o. ^Tvs* a 


^0 

, ___ : <j5 °* 

A ^ w\\v^ * \ > 

^ 4 S O 

*" 1 4 W <$> * o N o° <y o 

Y v‘YcY* *> V ,«•«. V , 

• ^ A 4Va % Y, Y 4 

: W ; mmPi °. ^ % 

* <-S -. 

4 <y V ' 





; 



j- 0 ^ 



0 V o'.'.’t "*b 


o. ^r.,» A 


w 





o V 



* /J ' ^ 


0 S * ” ' 


<$> * 




* / 1 



*> 

4 AV 

*, ^ G 0 ^ C°JL° 4 - o 


^0 

• ^ . 

• <L^ O ^ 

° W ° 4 ^ O, * 

\> . » • O, %. 

^ Yv <^ 





. V^> e 



'- - • » .c,^' 



*«*>o* 




%, ' • • * s .<^ v '•• * 

C 5 YtV . t i e < 5 > 

^ o * *L G 

,.’. +M r$ 


»>.V\\NSS> > Y 

<d» * . + *<cS* O ^ 

^ *o«o’ 3 * O *. M 

/ ,**0, V 

• r$* *fKVS» ^ c$ 

- y<* :$mM?i°. '^v’ 
: <£ \ \ 


Y' t 'J«smL*„ ^ - V’ •!.•»- -o t 



0 V c 0 " 9 ♦ 




<-&■ ^ 


Y*- '. 3 . «.► °o ‘^fk* o° % *>‘^.' 

1> f 1 • °, .<)“ . s * • , v*. 0 N 0 \V t # </> 9 • ' cfc .. ^ *©#o°. 

»>VA A 4 ’ , l ySK'. «, V Y aY vY#Y. A 

• e.y .*siKS* a . .Y k.tcOrA-. «v ♦ca«a» . a. 


° YY o 



v*4 


+ <>? 'Cci e 

<, «Cr ^ 

^ ^ -Or r 0 " 9 - ^ 

+ ac/r/Tp-y * *y* Vj • 

* .' 



%■<* 



* A? °b. 

A % r v '°^ D Jy - 

A? *<p , 0 ^ c° N9 ^ 

A .* &tfrr/?z! f ^ ry 


' !? ’V »’ 

A >G t /1 



.Y ^ 




°+. V'- 

\r & «, 

^ : v\ v * . 




h o vP *0 ^ x=^IBbSP ’V V^ * K\\ 88 //L vV ^7 * $ 

3 « 'ft “JOl^ r^ :miM%\ °^v 

r: /•% -« / 'V > V V *j 

\<v % *'?.V .&** \ V \ * 

■A^ • *■ ' • * 0 ^ 0 0 " ® ♦ ^O 4 ^ , t / 4 

k jK\I//s^z? ■» %<> <j h vSnm\u % _0< .* J&(fi//yt « *7 


_ >* ^° ^ ^ 

#-v . c t^/yy/yp ^ a ^ *> 

°^. *■♦'’*’ f° .•?>’ 

°‘ -J? ' r L'» > V % .*•»- 

C* ^ A *■ - ft 51 • 

V* * 

XV * 

«V> - 

,v ' J ^, • 

rt* < 


V ^sjxS^ \j v ^ 

'°*‘** A &< 


- - ~,, vv ^ ' & 
cA* *> • <1 v o 

V ‘ o . o ’ y- O 

x> v * y * °* c* 

S Vp 

/ .i\ *^^nininmiis=— < *» .\ ^ ’ > 0 


• or • 

: P ■*+ '. 


*•'’*' A° V <S> '*•»'•" ,-?> 

O- jlJT ,*V;, *> v' . * * ». 'o 

„* ^ a" 

r£» <\p * tK\S» /h,° cr 

: Vv * , ° vP - ^ 

v' <:• 



* ^> *<? • ?Wv 

^ ... ^ '• • * • 


v • 

■* 6? v C^ ° 

^° ... ^ • ‘ ' 



C\ 4' 

* ^ ^ 

V ; 


4 - 

^ A' "< 

%. v '..‘ 4 V'’ <X '«•»• A &’ 'O '-v.'.' A <. 

, cf, A* ^f> ,0^ >''” » ^o ^ V .“*» ^ 

'■ :J 8 ^* ^o< ' ^ 

'$2W§' > 0-7 b - 

-'° V. *' > " 0 y ‘"'- a 0 V '•... 

v „»»‘^- ^ .a > 

^ * 

> * 



r* *^SM' w : mmr ^ «j 

: -?Sk- /\ lw* : *.? 

> .w. # V"‘* o^.—. V^’V^ 



o N 


* <• ^ ^rv - 'S 

v Ai^xr * ■oP ' _ 0>. » ^ 

' 0 . 4 - \D 

0 ^ c 0 N 0 - ^c 

W C O 

A ' ^Sx\\D 

A° ^ & o N 0^ ^ O^ - • , , • ^0 

^ A A. ♦■ 4 (R. ^ . • '^* V 

<$P * 






* ' -a.^ o <- 

° ^ 

+ > V *"°» c> aO . 5 # i nL% 

^ ^ ^ ^^^£/}}lo ^ ^ * jSfl ^ 0 ^4 ♦ 

^ 1 vr* v * $$$$yx/2. t vP v ® ** 

° 

r ^ °, 

-S' *o . * - 

0 > 0 M Q ~ r 

°o 

- P 

<V * *TTP’' aP v "V '^fr»* % * -.r, ■ •* f °° V'- . 

c\ ,>r ,»•/%'> v s - < • c\ ,o ,- • • % -> 

• ^ x *7 i <* ,A /. ► . (?. S$ * X A A ^ A /, 

^ ^ ^V/k^ ^ / :agfty 

* - A ^ »<* c///w\\\i ^ ^ 


r o A <4 

^b 4 ^ 9 *■ 1 9 * <? 

’. o J-* ♦w%.’ ' 



4 O 
O *o 


o p C S 

* ^ s 

, . A V^4 

^ ^ w V3 cy ” 

0 



*»•- ^ 


^ * 4? ^ a > 

<0^ ^..s 5 A * 

r 0 V °^b\' t <» ^ 4 ^ *-* V /y£-L f 




























Beside the Bonnie Brier Besh 


(AUTHORIZED EDITION) 


iH 



David C. Cook Publishing Company, 

ELGIN, ILL., AND 

36 WASHINGTON STREET, CHICAGO. 

C 



45288 • . , 

7 K0V3-TO )) % ■ ;■■/■ V 

CONTENTS. 

DOMSIE. 

A Lad o’ Pairts, 3 

How we Carried the News to Whinnie Knowe, .... 8 

Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, 10 

A Scholar's Funeral, 14 

A HIGHLAND MYSTIC. 

What Eye hath not Seen, 19 

Against Principalities and Powers, ...... 22 

HIS MOTHER’S SERMON, 26 

THE TRANSFORMATION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 

A Grand Inquisitor, 31 

His Bitter Shame, 37 

Like as a Father, t 42 

As a Little Child, 47 

THE CUNNING SPEECH OF DRUMTOCHTY, 52 

A WISE WOMAN. 

Our Sermon Taster, 58 

The Collapse of Mrs. Macfadyen, 62 

A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 

A General Practitioner, 67 

Through the Flood, . . 73 

A Fight with Death, 78 

The Doctor’s Last Journey, . . . • • • • • 84 

The Mourning of the Glen, 90 

t’WOOOPibb KgCt£IVED* m 

Copyright, 1894, by Dodd, Mead & Company. 

1899, by David C. Cook Publishing Co. 

JUL 141899 } 


Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush. 

(AUTHORIZED EDITION.) 


PREFACE 


This edition of Ian Maclaren’s famous 
book has been prepared expressly for those 
who cannot readily understand the Scotch 
dialect. There are many in America to 
whom, on account of the dialect, “ The 
Bonnie Brier Bush ” is a sealed volume. In 
the present edition all difficult words and 
expressions have been translated, and it is 


hoped that the wonderful charm of Mac- 
laren’s most noted production may thus, to 
a certain extent, be unlocked to many who 
might otherwise pass it by without attempt- 
ing a reading. This edition is prepared and 
published with the consent of the author, 
and by arrangement with his publishers, 
Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co. 

THE PUBLISHERS. 


DOMSIE. 


A LAD O’ PAIRT8. 

HE Revolution reached our 
parish years ago, and 
Drumtochty has a School 
Board, with a chairman 
and a clerk, besides a 
treasurer and an officer. 
Young Hillocks, who had 
two years in a lawyer’s 
office, is clerk, and summons meetings by 
post, although he sees every member at the 
market or the kirk. Minutes are read with 
much solemnity, and motions to expend ten 
shillings upon a coal-cellar door passed, on 
the motion of Hillocks, seconded by Drums- 
heugh, who are both severely prompted for 
the occasion, and move uneasily before 
speaking. 

Drumsheugh was at first greatly exalted 
by his poll, and referred freely on market 
days to his “ plumpers,” but as time went on 
the irony of the situation laid hold upon 
him. 


“ Think o’ you and me, Hillocks, visitin’ 
the school, and sittin’ ‘wi’ books in our 
hands, watchin’ the inspector. Keep ’s all! 
it’s enough to make the old Dominie turn in 
his grave. Two ministers came in his time, 
and Domsie put Geordie Hoo or some ither 
smart laddie that was makin’ for college 
through his facin’s, and maybe some little 
lassie brought her copy-book. Then they 
had their dinner, and Domsie, too, wi’ the 
Doctor. Man, I’ve often thought it was the 
prospeck o’ the School Board and its weary 
bit rules that finished Domsie. He wasn’t, 
maybe, as sharp at the elements as this pre- 
cise body we have noo, but everybody knew 
he was a terrible scholar, and a credit to the 
parish. Drumtochty was a name in those 
days wi’ the lads he sent to college. It was 
maybe just as well he slippit awa’ when he 
did, for he would have taken ill with these 
new - fangled ideas and no college lad to 
warm his heart.” 

The present school-house stands in an open 
place beside the main road to Muirtown, 



BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


treeless and comfortless, built of red, staring 
stone, with a playground for the boys and 
another for the girls, and a trim, smug- 
looking teacher’s house, all very neat and 
symmetrical, and well-regulated. The local 
paper had a paragraph headed “ Drum- 
tochty,” written by the Muirtown architect, 
describing the whole premises in technical 
language, and concluding that “ this hand- 
some building of the Scoto-Grecian style 
was one of the finest works that had ever 
Come from the accomplished architect’s 
hands.” It has pitch-pine benches and map- 
cases, and a thermometer to be kept at not 
less than 58° and not more than G2°, and 
ventilators which the Inspector is careful to 
examine. When I stumbled in last week 
the teacher was drilling the children in 
Tonic Sol-fa with a little harmonium, and I 
left on tiptoe. 

It is difficult to live up to this kind of 
thing, and my thoughts drift to the old 
school-house and Domsie. Some one with 
the love of God in his heart had built it long 
ago, and chose a site for the bairns in the 
sweet pine-woods at the foot of the cart 
road to Whinnie Knowe and the upland 
farms. It stood in a clearing with the tall 
Scotch firs around three sides, and on the 
fourth a brake of gorse and bramble bushes, 
through which there was an opening to the 
road. The clearing was the playground, 
and in summer the bairns annexed as much 
wood as they liked, playing tag among the 
trees, or sitting down at dinner-time on the 
soft, dry spines that made an elastic carpet 
everywhere. Domsie used to say there were 
two pleasant sights for his old eyes every 
day. One was to stand in the open at din- 
ner-time and see the flitting forms of the 
healthy, rosy, sonsie bairns in the wood, and 
from the door in the afternoon to watch the 
school disperse, till each group was lost in 
the kindly shadow, and the merry shouts 
died away in this quiet place. Then the 
Dominie (school-master) took a pinch of 
snuff and locked the door, and went to his 


house beside the school. One evening I 
came on him listening bareheaded to the 
voices, and he showed so kindly that I shall 
take him as he stands. A man of middle 
height, but stooping below it, with sandy 
hair turning to gray, and bushy eye-brows 
covering keen, shrewd, gray eyes. You will 
notice that his linen is coarse but spotless, 
and that though his clothes are worn almost 
threadbare, they are well brushed and 
orderly. But you will be chiefly arrested by 
the Dominie’s coat, for the like of it was not 
in the parish. It was a black dress coat, 
and no man knew when it had begun its 
history; in its origin and its continuance it 
resembled Melcliisedek. Many were the 
myths that gathered round that coat, but on 
this all were agreed: that without it we 
could not have realized the Dominie, and it 
became to us the sign and trappings of 
learning. He had taken a high place at the 
University, and won a good degree, and I’ve 
heard the Doctor say that he had a career 
before him. But something happened in his 
life, and Domsie buried himself among the 
woods with the bairns of Drumtochty. No 
one knew the story, but after he died I 
found a locket on his breast, with a proud, 
beautiful face within, and I have fancied it 
was a tragedy. It may have been in sub- 
stitution that he gave all his love to the 
children, and nearly all his money, too, 
helping lads to college, and affording an in- 
exhaustible store of peppermints for the lit- 
tle ones. 

Perhaps one ought to have been ashamed 
of that school-house, but yet it had its own 
distinction, for scholars were born there, 
and now and then to this day some famous 
man will come and stand in the deserted 
playground for a space. The door was at 
one end, and stood open in summer, so that 
the boys saw the rabbits come out from 
their holes on the edge of the wood, and 
birds sometimes flew in unheeded. The fire- 
place was at the other end, and was fed in 
winter with the sticks and peats brought by 


DOMSIE. 


5 


the scholars. On one side Domsie sat with 
the half dozen lads he hoped to send to col- 
lege, to whom he grudged no labor, and on 
the other gathered the very little ones, who 
used to warm their bare feet at the fire, 
while down the sides of the room the other 
scholars sat at their rough old desks, work- 
ing sums and copying. Now and then a class 
came up and did some task, and at times 
a boy got the tawse (strap) for his negli- 
gence, but never a girl. He kept the girls 
in as their punishment, with a brother to 
take them home, and both had tea in Dom- 
sies,’s house, with a bit of his best honey, 
departing much torn between an honest 
wish to please Domsie and a pardonable 
longing for another tea. 

“ Domsie,” as we called the school-master 
behind his back in Drumtoclity, because 
we loved him, w T as true to the tradition of 
his kind, and had an unerring scent for 
“ pairts ” (unusual abilities) in his laddies. 
He could detect a scholar in the egg, and 
prophesied Latinity from a boy that seemed 
fit only to be a cowherd. It was believed 
that he had never made a mistake in judg- 
ment, and it was not his blame if the 
embryo scholar did not come to birth. 
“ Five and thirty years have I been minister 
at Drumtochty,” the Doctor used to say at 
school examinations, “ and we have never 
wanted a student at the University, and 
while Dominie Jamieson lives we never 
shall.” Whereupon Domsie took snuff, and 
assigned his share of credit to the Doctor, 
“ who gave the finish in Greek to every lad 
of them, without money and without price, 
to make no mention of the higher mathe- 
matics.” Seven ministers, four school-mas- 
ters, four doctors, one professor, and three 
civil-service men had been sent out by the 
old school in Domsie’s time, besides many 
that “ had given themselves to mercantile 
pursuits.” 

He had a leaning to classics and the pro- 
fessions, but Domsie was catholic in his 
recognition of “pairts,” and when the son 


of Hillocks’ foreman made a collection of 
the insects of Drumtochty, there was a 
council at the manse. “ Bumbee Willie,” as 
he had been pleasantly called by his com- 
panions, was rescued from ridicule and en- 
couraged to fulfill his bent. Once a year a 
long letter came to Mr. Patrick Jamieson, 



M. A., Schoolmaster, Drumtochty, N. B., and 
the address within was the British Museum. 
When Domsie read this letter to the school, 
he was always careful to explain that “ Dr. 
Graham is the greatest living authority on 
beetles,” and, generally speaking, if any 
clever lad did not care for Latin, he had the 
alternative of beetles. 

But it was Latin Domsie hunted for as 
for fine gold, and when he found the smack 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BB1EB BUSH. 


of it in a lad he rejoiced openly. He counted 
it a day in his life when he knew certainly 
that he had hit on another scholar, and the 
whole school saw the identification of 
George Howe. For a winter Domsie had 
been “ at po.mt,” racing George through 
Ca?sar, stalking him behind irregular verbs, 
baiting traps with tit-bits of Virgil. During 
these exercises Domsie surveyed George 
from above his spectacles with a hope that 
grew every day in assurance, and came to 
its height over a bit of Latin prose. Domsie 
tasted it visibly, and read it again in the 
shadow of the firs at meal-time, slapping his 
leg twice. 

“ He’ll do! He'll do!” cried Domsie, aloud, 
ladling in the snuff. “George, *my mannie, 
tell your father that I’m cornin’ up to 
Whinnie Knowe to-night on a bit o’ busi- 
ness.” 

Then the school knew that Geordie Howe 
was marked for college, and pelted him with 
fir cones in great gladness of heart. • 

“ Whinnie ” was full of curiosity over the 
Dominie’s visit, and vexed Marget sorely, 
to whom Geordie had told wondrous things 
in the milk-house. “It can’t be coals that 
he’s wantin’ from the station, for there’s a 
good many left.” 

“ And it’ll not be seed taties,” she said, 
pursuing the principle of exhaustion, “ for 
he has some Perthshire reds himself. I 
doubt it's somethin’ wrong with Geordie.” 
And Whinnie started on a new track. 

“ He’s been playin’ truant, maybe. I mind 
gettin’ my punishment for bird-nestin’ my- 
self. I’ll wager that’s the very thing!” 

“ Well, ye’re wrong, William,” broke in 
Marget, Whinnie’s wife, a tall, silent 
woman, with a speaking face; “ it’s neither 
the one thing nor the ither, but something 
I've been prayin’ for since Geordie was a 
w r ee bairn. Clean yourself, and meet Dom- 
sie on the road, for no man deserves more 
honor in Drumtochty, neither laird nor 
farmer.” 

Conversation with us was a leisurely 


game, with slow movements and many 
pauses, and it w*as our custom to handle all 
the pawns before w’e brought the queen into 
action. 

Domsie and Whinnie discussed the 
weather with much detail before they came 
in sight of George, but it w^as clear that 
Domsie w T as charged with something 
weighty, and even Whinnie felt that his own 
treatment of the turnip crop was wanting 
in repose. 

At last Domsie cleared his throat and 
looked at Marget, w T ho had been in and out, 
but ever within hearing. 

“ George is a fine laddie, Mrs. How r e.” 

An ordinary Drumtochty mother, although 
bursting with pride, would have responded, 
“ He’s weel enough, if he had grace in 
his heart,” in a tone that implied that it 
was extremely unlikely, and that her lad- 
die led the reprobates of the parish. As 
it was, Marget’s face lightened, and she 
waited. 

“What do you think of making him?” 
and the Dominie dropped the wmrds slowiy, 
for this was a moment in Drumtochty. 

There was just a single ambition in those 
humble homes, to have one of its members 
at college, and if Domsie approved a lad, 
then his brothers and sisters would give 
their wages, and .the family would live on 
skim milk and oat cake, to let him have his 
chance. 

Whinnie glanced at his wife and turned 
to Domsie. 

“ Marget’s set on seein’ Geordie a minister, 
Dominie.” 

“ If he’s worthy of it, no otherwise. We 
haven’t the means, though; the farm is 
highly rented, and there’s barely a penny 
over at the end o’ the year.” 

“ But you are willing George should go 
and see what he can do. If he disappoints 
ye, then I do not know a lad o’ pairts w r hen I 
see him; and the Doctor is with me.” 

“ Maister Jamieson,” said Marget, with 
great solemnity, “ my heart’s desire is to see 


DOMSIE. 


'George a minister, and if the Almighty 
spared me to hear my only bairn open his 
mouth in the Evangel, I would have noth- 
ing more to ask, . . . but I doubt much 
it cannot be managed.” 

Domsie had got all he asked, and he rose 
in his strength. 

“ If George Howe doesn’t get to college, 
then he’s the first scholar I’ve lost in Drum- 
tochty. . . . Ye’ll manage his keep, and 
such like?” 

“ No fear o’ that,” for Whinnie was warm- 
ing, “ though I haven’t a stitch o’ new 
clothes for four years. But what about his 
fees, and ither odds and ends?” 

“ There’s one man in the parish can pay 
George’s fees without missing a penny, and 
I’ll warrant he’ll do it.” 

‘‘Are ye meanin’ Drumsheugh?” said 
Whinnie, “ for ye’ll never get a penny piece 
out o’ him. Did ye no hear how the Frees 
wiled him into their kirk a week ago Sab- 
bath, when Netlierton’s sister’s son from 
Edinboro’ was preachipg the missionary 
sermon, expectin’ a note, and if he didn’t 
change a shillin’ at the public-house, and put 
in a penny! Man, he’s a lad, Drumsheugh. 
I’m thinking ye may save your journey, 
Dominie.” 

But Marget looked from her into the past, 
and her eyes had a tender light. “ He had 
the best heart in the parish once.” 

Domsie found Drumsheugh inclined for 
company, and assisted at an exhaustive and 
caustic treatment of local affairs. When the 
conduct of Tiggie Walker, who bought 
Drumsheugh’s potatoes and went into bank- 
ruptcy without paying for a single tuber, 
had been characterized in language that left 
nothing to be desired, Drumsheugh began to 
soften and show signs of reciprocity. 

“ Hoo’s your laddies, Dominie?” whom the 
farmer regarded as a risky turnip crop in a 
stiff clay that Domsie had to ‘‘fight away 
in.” “ Are ony o’ them shapin’ weel?” 

Drumsheugh had given himself away, and 
Domsie laid his first parallel with a glowing 


account of George Howe’s Latinity, which 
was well received. 

“ Weel, I'm glad to hear such accounts o’ 
Marget Hoo’s son; there’s nothing in Whin- 
nie but what the spoon puts in.” 

But at the next move, Drumsheugh 
scented danger, and stood guard. “ No, no, 
Dominie! I see what ye’re after fine; ye 
mind hoo ye got three notes out o’ me at 
Perth market a year ago Martinmas for one 
o’ your college laddies. Five pounds for 
four years; my Word, ye’re no very modest 
aboot it! And why should I educate Mar- 
get Hoo’s bairn? If ye knew all. ye 
wouldn’t ask me; it’s not reasonable, Dom- 
inie. So there’s an end of it.” 

Domsie was only a pedantic old parish 
school-master, and he knew little beyond his 
craft, but the spirit of the Humanists awoke 
within him, and he smote with all his 
might, bidding good-by to his English as one 
flings away the scabbard of a sword. 

“ Ye think that I’m askin’ a great thing 
when I plead for a few notes to give a poor 
laddie a college education. I tell ye, man. 
I'm honorin’ ye, and givin’ ye the fairest 
chance ye’ll ever have of winnin’ wealth. 
If ye store up the money ye have scraped 
by rnony a hard bargain, some heir ye never 
saw ’ill make it fly in w T antonness. If ye 
had the heart to spend it on a likely lad like 
Geordie Howe, ye would have two rewards 
no man could take from ye. One would be 
the honest gratitude o’ a laddie whose desire 
for knowledge you had satisfied, and the 
second would be this — anither scholar in the 
land; and I’m thinkin’, with old John Knox, 
that every scholar is something added to the 
riches of the commonwealth. And what'll 
it cost ye? Little more than the price o’ a 
cattle beast. Man, Drumsheugh, ye poverty- 
stricken cratur, I’ve nothing in this world 
but a handful o’ books and a ten-pound note 
for my funeral, and yet, if it wasn’t I have 
all my brother’s wee ones to keep, I would 
pay every penny myself. But I’ll no see 
Geordie sent to the plow, though I go from 


8 


BESIDE TEE BONNIE BBIER BUSH. 


door to door. No, no; the grass ’ill not grow 
on the road between the college and the 
school-house o’ Drumtochty till they lay me 
in the old kirkyard.” 

“ Man, Domsie was roused!” Drumsheugh 
explained in the Muir Inn next market. 
“ ‘ Miserly wretch ’ was the civilest word on 
his tongue. He would neither sit nor taste, 
and was half way down the yard before I 
could quiet him. And I’m no sayin’ he had 
no reason if I’d been meanin’ all I said. It 
would be a scandal to the parish if a likely 
lad couldna go to college for the want o’ 
money. No, no, neighbors; we have our 
faults, but we’re no so downright mean as 
that in Drumtochty.” 

As it was, when Domsie did depart he 
could only grip Drumsheugh’s hand, and say 
Maecenas, and was so intoxicated, but not 
with strong drink, that he explained to 
Hillocks on the way home that Drumsheugh 
would be a credit to Drumtochty, and that 
his Latin style reminded him of Cicero. He 
added as an afterthought that Whinnie 
Knowe had promised to pay Drumsheugh’s 
fees for four years at the University of 
Edinburgh. 


HOW WE CARRIED THE NEWS TO 
WHINNIE KNOWE. 

OMSIE was an artist, 
and prepared the 
way for George’s 
University achieve- 
ment with much 
cunning. Once every 
Sabbath in the kirk- 
yard, where he laid 
down the law be- 
neath an old elm 
tree, and twice be- 
tween Sabbaths, at 
the post-office and by the wayside, he 
adjured us not to expect beyond measure, 
and gave us reasons. 


“ Ye see, he has a natural talent for learn- 
ing, and took to Latin like a duck to water. 
What could be done in Drumtochty was 
done for him, and he’s working night and 
day, but he’ll have a sore fight with the lads 
from the town schools. No, no, neighbors,” 
said the Dominie, lapsing into dialect, “ we 
darena look for a prize. No the first year, at 
ony rate.” 

“ Man, Dominie, I’m clean astonished at 
ye!” Drumsheugh used to break in, who, 
since he had given to George’s support, out- 
ran us all in his faith, and had no patience 
with Domsie’s devices. “I tell ye, if Geordie 
doesn’t get a first in every class he’s entered 
for, the judges ’ill be a poor lot!” — with a 
fine confusion of circumstances. 

“ Losh, Drumsheugh, be quiet, or ye’ll do 
the laddie an injury,” said Domsie, with 
genuine alarm. “ We mustn’t mention prizes, 
and first is fair madness. A certificate of 
honor noo, that will be aboot it, maybe next 
to the prize-men.” 

Coming home from market he might open 
his heart. “ George ’ill be among the first 
six, or my name is no Jamieson,” but gen- 
erally he prophesied a moderate success. 
There were rimes when he affected indiffer- 
ence, and talked cattle. We then regarded 
him with awe, because this was more than 
mortal. 

It was my luck to carry the bulletin to 
Domsie, and I learned what he had been 
enduring. It was good manners in Drum- 
tochty to feign amazement at the sight of a 
letter, and to insist that it must be intended 
for some other person. When it was finally 
forced upon one, you examined the hand- 
writing at various angles and speculated 
about the writer. When Posty handed 
Drumsheugh the factor’s letter, with the 
answer to his offer for the farm, he only 
remarked, “ It’ll be from the factor,” and 
hurried back to a polled Angus bull he had 
seen at the show. “ Man,” said Posty in the 
kirk-yard, with keen relish, “ ye’ll never 
flurry Drumsheugh.” Ordinary letters were 



DOMSIE. 


9 


read in leisurely retirement, and, in case of 
urgency, answered within the week. 

Domsie clutched the letter, and would 
have torn off the envelope. But he could 
not; his hand was shaking like an aspen. 
He could only look, and I read: 

“Dear Mr.'Jamieson: The class honor lists 
are just out, and you will be pleased to know 
that I have got the medal both in the Hu- 
manity and the Greek.” 

There was something about telling his 
mother, and his gratitude to his school-mas- 
ter, but Domsie heard no more. He tried to 
speak and could not, for a rain of tears was 
on his hard old face. Domsie was far more 
a pagan than a saint, but somehow he 
seemed to me that day as Simeon, who had 
at last seen his heart’s desire, and was sat- 
isfied. 

When the school had dispersed with a 
joyful shout, an(f disappeared in the pine 
woods, he said, “ Ye’ll come, too,” and I 
knew he -was going to Whinnie Knowe. He 
did not speak one word upon the way, but 
twice he stood and read the letter, which he 
held fast in his hand. His face was set as 
he climbed the cart track. I saw it set again 
as we once came down that road, but it was 
well that we could not pierce beyond the 
day. 

Whinnie left his plow in the furrow, and 
came to meet us, taking two drills at a 
stride, and shouting remarks on the weather 
yards off. 

Domsie only lifted the letter. “ From 
George.” 

“Ay, ay, and what’s he gotten noo?” 

Domsie solemnly unfolded the letter, and 
brought down his spectacles. “ Edinburgh, 
April 7th.” Then he looked at Whinnie, and 
closed his mouth. 

“ We’ll tell it first to his mither.” 

“ Ye’re right, Dominie. She weel deserves 
it. I’m thinkin’ she’s seen us by this time.” 

So we fell into a procession, Dominie lead- 
ing by two yards; and then a strange thing 
happened. For the first and last time in his 


life Domsie whistled, and the tune was “ A 
hundred pipers and a’ and a’,” and as he 
whistled he seemed to dilate before our eyes, 
and he struck down thistles with his stick — 
a thistle at every stroke. 

“ Domsie’s fair carried away!” whispered 
Whinnie; “it beats all!” 

Marget met us at the end of the house 
beside the brier bush, where George was to 
sit on summer afternoons before he died, 
and a flash passed between Domsie and the 
lad’s mother. She knew that it was well, 
and fixed her eyes on the letter, but Whin- 
nie, his thumbs in his armholes, watched the 
wife. 

Domsie now essayed to read the news, but 
between the shaking of his hands and his 
voice he could not. 

“ It’s no use,” he cried, “ he’s first in the 
Humanity out of a hundred and seventy 
lads, first of them all, and he’s first in the 
Greek, too; the like o’ this is hardly known, 
and it has not been seen in Drumtoclity 
since there was a school! That’s the word 
he’s sent, and he bade me tell his mother 
without delay, and I am here as fast as my 
old feet could carry me.” 

I glanced around, although I did not my- 
self see very clearly. 

Marget was silent for the space of five sec- 
onds; she was a good woman, and I knew 
that better afterwards. She took the Dom- 
inie’s hand, and said to him, “ Under God 
this was your doin’, Maister Jamieson, and 
for your reward ye’ll get neither silver nor 
gold, but ye hae a mitlier’s gratitude.” 

Whinnie gave a hoarse chuckle and said to 
his wife, “ It was from you, Marget, he got 
it all.” 

When we settled in the parlor, Domsie’s 
tongue was loosed, and he lifted up his voice 
and sang the victory of Geordie Howe. 

“ It’s ten years ago at the breakin’ up of 
the winter ye brought him doon to me, Mrs. 
Howe, and ye said at the school-house door, 
‘Don’t be hard on him, Maister Jamieson; 
he’s my only bairn, and a wee thiugie quiet.’ 


10 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH 


Do ye mind what I said? — ‘ There’s some- 
thing behind that face,’ and my heart 
warmed to George that hour. Two years 
after the Doctor examined the school, and 
he looks at George. ‘ That’s a likely lad, 
Dominie. What think ye?’ And he was 
only eight years old, and no big for his age. 

‘ Doctor, I daren’t prophesy till we put him 
into the Latin, but I’ve my opinions.’ So I 
had all the time, but I never boasted — no, 
no; that’s dangerous. Didn't I say, ‘ Ye have 
a promisin’ laddie, Whinnie,’ one day in the 
market?” 

“It’s a fact,” said Whinnie; ‘‘it was the 
day I bought the white cow.” But Domsie 
swept on. 

“ The first year o’ Latin was enough for 
me. He just snapped up his verbs. Caesar 
couldn’t keep him goin’; he was into Virgil 
afore he was eleven, and the Latin prose, 
man, as sure as I’m livin’, it tasted of 
Cicero from the beginnin’.” 

Whinnie wagged his head in amazement. 

“ It was the very night o’ the Latin prose 
T came up to speak aboot the college, and 
ye thought Geordie had been playin’ tru- 
ant.” 

Whinnie laughed uproariously, but Dom- 
sie heeded not. 

“ It was awfu’ work the next two years, 
but the Doctor stood in weel wi’ the Greek. 
Ye mind hoo Geordie tramped over the 
moor to the manse through the wet and the 
snow, and there were always dry stockings 
for him in this kitchen before he had his 
Greek in the Doctor’s study.” 

“ And a warm drink, too,” put in Marget, 
“ and that’s the window I put the light in to 
guide him home in the dark winter nights; 
and many a time when the sleet played 
swish on the glass I was near wishin’ — ” 

Domsie waved his hand. “ But that’s done 
wi’ noo, and he was worth all the toil and 
trouble. First in . the Humanity and first 
in the Greek, swept the field — Lord pre- 
serve us! I can hardly believe it. Eh, I was 
afraid o’ those High School lads. They had 


terrible advantages. Masters from England, 
and tutors, and whatnot more, but Drum- 
tochty carried off the crown! It'll be fine 
readin’ in the papers — 

“ ‘ Humanity. — First Prize (and 
Medal), George Howe, Drumtochty, 
Perthshire. 

“ ‘ Greek. — First Prize (and Medal), 
George Howe, Drumtochty, Perth- 
shire.’ ” 

“ It’ll be mighty!” cried WTiinnie, now 
fairly on fire. 

“ And philosophy and mathematics to 
come! Geordie’s no bad at Euclid. I'll 
wager he’ll be first there, too. When he 
gets his hand in there’s nothing he’s no fit 
for, with time. My own laddie — and the 
Doctor’s — we mustn’t forget him — it’s his 
classics he has, every book of them. The 
Doctor ’ill be uplifted when he comes back 
on Saturday. I’m thinkin’ w r e’ll hear of it 
on Sabbath. And Drumsheugh, he’ll be 
neither to hold nor bind in the kirk-yard. 
As for me, I would not change places with 
the Duke of Athole!” and Domsie shook the 
table to its foundation. 

Then he awoke as from a dream, and the 
shame of boasting that shuts the mouths of 
self-respecting Scots fell upon him. 

“ But this is fair nonsense. Ye’ll not mind 
the goin’s on of an old school-master.” 

He fell back on a recent roup (auction), 
and would not again break away, although 
sorely tempted by certain of Whinnie’s spec- 
ulations. 

When I saw him last, his coat-tails were 
waving victoriously as he leaped a dyke on 
his way to tell our Drumtochty Maecenas 
that the judges knew their business. 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 

T HE cart track to Whinnie Knowe was 
commanded by a gable window, and 
Whinnie boasted that Marget had never been 
taken unaw ? ares. Tramps, finding every 
door locked, and no sign of life anywhere, 


DOMSIE. 


11 


used to express their mind in the “ close,” 
and return by the way they came, while 
ladies from Muirtown, fearful lest they 
should put Mrs. Howe out, were met at the 
garden gate by Marget in her Sabbath 
dress, and brought in to a set tea as if they 
had been invited weeks before. 

Whinnie gloried most in the discomfiture 
of the Tory agent, who had vainly hoped to 
coerce him in the stack-yard without Mar- 
get’s presence, as her intellectual contempt 
for the Conservative party knew no bounds. 

“ She saw him slip off the road before the 
last stile, and whip around the foot of the 
garden wall, like a fox after the chickens. 

“ ‘ It’s a hot day, Maister Anderson,’ says 
Marget, from the garden, lookin’ down on 
him as calm as ye like. ‘ Ye’re surely no 
goin’ to pass oor house withoot a glass o’ 
milk?’ 

“Would ye believe it, he was' that upset 
he left withoot sayin’ ‘ vote,’ and Drums- 
heugh told me next market that his language 
afterwards couldn’t be printed.” 

When George came home for the last 
time, Marget went back and forward all 
afternoon from his bedroom to the window, 
and hid herself beneath the laburnum to see 
his face as the cart stood before the stile. 
It told her plain what she had feared, and 
Marget passed through her Gethsemane 
with the gold blossoms falling on her face. 
When their eyes met, and before she helped 
him down, mother and son understood. 

“ You mind what I told you, o’ the Greek 
mothers, the day I left. Well, I would have 
liked to have carried my shield, but it was 
not to be, so I’ve come home on it.” As they 
went slowly up the garden walk, “ I’ve got 
my degree, a double first, mathematics and 
classics.” 

“ Ye’ve been a good soldier, George, and 
faithful.” 

“ Unto death, I’m thinkin’, mother.” 

“No,” said Marget, “unto life.” 

Drumtochty was not a heartening place in 
sickness, and Marget, who did not think 


our thoughts, endured much consolation at 
her neighbors’ hands. It is said that in 
cities visitors congratulate a patient on his 
good looks, and deluge his family with in- 
stances of recovery. This would have 
seemed to us shallow and unfeeling, besides 
being a “ temptin’ o’ Providence,” which 
might not have intended to go to extrem- 
ities, but on a challenge of this kind had no 
alternative. Sickness was regarded as a dis- 
tinction tempered with judgment, and fa- 
vored people found it difficult to be humble. 
I always thought more of Peter Macintosh 
when the mysterious “ trouble ” that needed 
the Perth doctor made no difference in his 
manner, and he passed his snuff-box across 
the seat before the long prayer as usual, 
but in this indifference to privileges Peter 
was exceptional. 

You could never meet Kirsty Stewart on 
equal terms, although she was quite affable 
to any one who knew his place. 

“ Aye,” she said, on my respectful allusion 
to her experience, “ I’ve seen more than 
most. It doesn’t become me to boast, but 
though I say it as shouldn’t, I have buried 
all my own folk.” 

Kirsty had a “ way ” in sick visiting, con- 
sisting in a certain cadence of the voice and 
arrangement of the face, which was felt to 
be soothing and complimentary. 

“ Ye’re aboot again, I’m glad to see,” to 
me after my accident, “ but ye’re no done 
wi’ that leg; no, no. Jeems — that was my 
second son — scrapit his shin once, though 
no so bad as ye’ve done, I’m hearin’ (for I 
had denied Kirsty the courtesy of an in- 
spection). It’s six years ago noo, and he got 
up and was travelin’ right hearty, like yer- 
self. But he began to sicken in the end o’ 
the year, and glided awa’ in the spring. 
Ay, ay, when trouble comes ye never know 
how it’ll end. I thought I would come up 
and ask for ye. A body needs comfort if 
he’s ill.” 

When I found George wrapped in his plaid 
beside the brier bush, whose roses were no 


12 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIEB BUSH. 


whiter than his cheeks, Kirsty was already 
installed as comforter in the parlor, and her 
drone came through the open window. 

“ Ay, ay, Marget, so it’s come to this. 
Weel, we daren’t complain, ye know. Be 
thankfu’ ye haven’t lost your man and five 
sons, besides two sisters and a brither, no to 
mention cousins. That would be something 
to speak aboot, and Losh keep us! there’s 
no sayin’ but he might hang on a while. 
Ay, ay, it’s a sore blow, after all that was in 
the papers. ‘ Let weel alone,’ says I to the 
Dominie; ‘ ye’ll bring a judgment on the 
laddie wi’ your blowin’!’ But ye might as 
well have spoken to the hills. Domsie’s a 
contrary body at the best, and he was clean 
infatuated wi’ George. Ay, ay, it’s an awfu’ 
lesson, Marget, no to make idols o’ our 
bairns, for that’s nothin’ else than provokin’ 
the Almighty.” 

It was at this point that Marget gave way 
and scandalized Drumtochty, which held 
that obtrusive prosperity was an irresistible 
provocation to the higher powers, and that 
a skillful depreciation of our children was a 
policy of safety. 

“Did ye say the Almighty? I’m thinkin’ 
that’s too grand a name for your God, Kir- 
sty. What would ye think o’ a father that 
brought home some bonnie thing from the 
fair for one o’ his bairns, and when the poor 
bairn was pleased wi’ it, tore it oot o’ his 
hand, and flung it into the fire? Eh, woman, 
he would be a miserable, cankered, jealous 
body. Kirsty, woman, when the Almighty 
sees a mither bound up in her laddie, I tell 
ye he is well pleased in his heaven, for mind 
ye how he loved his own Son. Besides, I’m 
judgin’ that none o’ us can love anither 
withoot lovin’ Him, or hurt anither withoot 
hurtin’ Him. Oh, I know weel that George 
is goin’ to leave us; but it’s not because the 
Almighty is jealous o’ him or me, not likely. 
It came to me last night that he needs my 
laddie for some grand work in the ither 
world, and that’s how George has his books 
brought oot to the garden, and studies all 


the day. He wants to be ready for his 
kingdom, just as he struggled in the bit 
school o’ Drumtochty for Edinboro’. I 
hoped he would have been a minister o’ 
Christ’s gospel here, but he'll be judge over 
many cities yonder. I’m not denyin’, Kirsty, 
that it’s a trial, but I have light on it, and 
nothin’ but good thoughts o’ the Almighty.” 

Drumtochty understood that Kirsty had 
dealt faithfully with Marget for pride and 
presumption, but all we heard was, “ Losh 
keep us all!” 

When Marget came out and sat down be- 
side her son, her face was shining. Then 
she saw the open window. 

“ I didn’t know.” 

“ Never mind, mither; there’s no secrets 
between us, and it made my heart leap to 
hear ye speak up like yon for God, and to 
know ye’re content. Do ye mind the night 
I called for ye, mither, and ye gave me the 
gospel aboot God?” 

Marget slipped her hand into George’s, 
and he let his head rest on her shoulder. 
The likeness flashed upon me in that mo- 
ment, the earnest, deep-set gray eyes, the 
clean-cut, firm jaw, and the tender, mobile 
lips, that blend of apparent austerity and 
underlying romance that makes the pathos 
of a Scottish face. 

“ There had been a Revival man here,” 
George explained to me, “ and he was 
preaching on hell. As it grew dark a candle 
was lighted, and I can still see his face as in 
a picture, a hard-visaged man. He looked 
down at us laddies in the front, and asked 
us if we knew what hell was like. By this 
time we were that terrified none of us could 
speak, but I whispered ‘ No.’ 

“ Then he rolled up a piece of paper and 
held it in the flame, and we saw it burn and 
glow and shrivel up and fall in black dust. 

“ ‘ Think,’ said he, and he leaned over the 
desk, and spoke in a gruesome whisper 
which made the cold run down our backs, 
‘ that yon paper was your finger, one finger 
only of your hand, and it burned like that 


DOlfSIE. 


for ever and ever, and think of your hand 
and your arm and your whole body all on 
fire, never to go out.’ We shuddered that 
you might have heard the form creak. 
* That is hell, and that is where ony laddie 
will go who does not repent and believe.’ 

“ It was like Dante's Inferno, and I dared 
not take my eyes off his face. He blew out 


“ Ye have not forgotten, mither, the fright 
that was on me that night?” 

“Never,” said Marget, “and never can; 
it's hard work for me to keep from hatin’ 
that man. dead or alive. Geordie gripped 
me wi’ both his wee arms round my neck, 
and he cries over and over again, ‘ Is yon 
God?’ ” 



the candle, and we crept to the door trem- 
bling. not able to say one word. 

“ That night I could not sleep, for I 
thought I might be in the fire before morn- 
ing. It was harvest time, and the moon was 
filling the room with cold, clear light. From 
my bed I could see the stooks standin’ in 
rows upon the field, and it seemed like the 
judgment day. 

“ I was only a wee laddie, and I did what 
we all do in trouble, I cried for my mither. 


“ Ay. and ye kissed me, mither, and ye 
said (it's like yesterday), * Ye’re safe wi’ 
me,’ and ye told me that God might punish 
me to make me better if I was bad, but that 
he would never torture any poor soul, for 
that could do no good, and was the devil’s 
work. Ye asked me, ‘ Am I a good mother 
to ye?’ and when I could do nothing but 
hold, ye said, * Be sure God must be a great 
deal kinder.’ 

“ The truth came to me as with a flicker. 


14 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


and I cuddled down into my bed, and fell 
asleep in His love as in my mother’s arms. 

“ Mither,” and George lifted up his head, 
“ that was my conversion, and, mither dear, 
I have longed all through the college 
studies, for the day when my mouth would 
be opened wi’ this Evangel.” 

Marget’s was an old-fashioned garden, 
with pinks and daisies and forget-me-nots, 
with sweet-scented wall-flowers and thyme 
ancl moss roses, where Nature had her way, 
and gracious thoughts could visit one with- 
out any jarring note. As George’s voice 
softened to the close, I caught her saying, 
“ His servants shall see His face,” and the 
peace of Paradise fell upon us in the shadow 
of death. 

The night before the end George was car- 
ried out to his corner, and Domsie, whose 
heart was nigh unto breaking, sat with him 
the afternoon. They used to fight the col- 
lege battles over again, with their favorite 
classics beside them, but this time none of 
them spoke of books. Marget was moving 
about the garden, and she told me that 
George looked at Domsie wistfully, as if he 
had something to say and knew not how to 
do it. 

After a while he took a book from below 
his pillow, and began, like one thinking over 
his words: 

“ Maister Jamieson, ye have been a good 
friend to me, the best I ever had after my 
mither and faither. Will ye take this book 
for a keepsake o’ your grateful scholar? 
It’s a Latin ‘ Imitation,’ Dominie, and it’s 
bonnie printin’. Ye mind how ye gave me 
your ain Virgil, and said he was a kind o’ 
pagan saint. Now*, here is my saint, and do 
ye know, I’ve often thought Virgil saw His 
day afar off, and was glad. Will ye read it, 
♦Dominie, for my sake, and maybe ye’ll come 
to see — ” And George could not find words 
for more. 

But Domsie understood. “ My laddie, that 
I love better than onything on earth, I’ll read 
it till I die; and, George, I’ll tell ye what 


livin’ man does not know. When I was your 
very age, I had a cruel trial, and my heart 
was turned from faith. The classics have 
been my Bible, though I said nothing to any 
man against Christ. He aye seemed beyond 
man, and now the vision o’ him has come to 
me in this garden. Laddie, ye have done far 
more for me than I ever did for you. Will 
ye make a prayer for your old Dominie afore 
we part?” 

There was a thrush singing in the birches 
and a sound of bees in the air, when George 
prayed in a low, soft voice, with a little 
break in it. 

“ Lord Jesus, remember my dear maister, 
for he’s been a kind maister to me and many 
a poor laddie in Drumtochty. Bind up his 
sore heart, and give him light at eventide, 
and may the maister and his scholars meet 
some mornin’ where the school never scat- 
ters, in the kingdom o’ oor Faither.” 

Twice Domsie said Amen, and it seemed 
as the voice of another man, and then lie 
kissed George upon the forehead; but what 
they said Marget did not wish to hear. 

When he passed out at the garden gate, 
the westering sun was shining golden, and 
the face of Domsie was like unto that of a 
little child. 


A SCHOLAR’S FUNERAL. 



RUMTOCHTY never ac- 
quitted itself with 
credit at a marriage, 
having no natural ap- 
titude for gayety, and 
being haunted with 
anxiety 1 est any 
1 “height” should end in a “hollow,” 
but the parish had a genius for 
funerals. It was long mentioned with a just 
sense of merit that an English undertaker, 
chancing on a “ beerial ” with us, had no 
limits to his admiration. He had been dis- 
heartened to despair all his life by the 
ghastly efforts of chirpy little Southerners 


D0MS1E. 


IS 


to look solemn on occasion, but his dreams 
were satisfied at the sight of men like 
Drumsheugh and Hillocks in their Sabbath 
blacks. Nature lent an initial advantage in 
face, but it was an instinct in the blood 
that brought our manner to perfection. 
Nothing could be more awful than a 
group of those austere figures, each man 
gazing into vacancy without a trace of ex- 
pression, and refusing to recognize his near- 
est neighbor by word or look. Drumtochty 
gave itself to a “ beerial ” with chastened 
satisfaction, partly because it lay near to 
the sorrow of things, and partly because 
there was nothing of speculation in it. “ Ye 
can have little real pleasure in a marriage,” 
explained our grave-digger, in whom the 
serious side had been perhaps abnormally 
developed, “ for ye never know hoo it will 
end; but there’s no risk aboot a ‘ beerial.’ ” 

It came with a shock upon townsmen that 
the ceremony began with a “ service o’ 
speerits,” and that an attempt of the Free 
Kirk minister to replace this by the reading 
of Scripture "was resisted as an “ innova- 
tion.” Yet every one admitted that the 
seriousness of Drumtochty pervaded and 
sanctified this function. A tray of glasses 
was placed on a table with great solemnity 
by the “ wright ” (undertaker), who made no 
sign and invited none. You might have sup- 
posed that the circumstance had escaped the 
notice of the company, so abstracted and 
unconscious was their manner, had it not 
been that two graven images a minute later 
are standing at the table. 

‘‘Ye’ll taste, Tammas?” with settled mel- 
ancholy. 

“No, no; I’ve no incleenation the day; it’s 
an awfu’ dispensation this, Jeems. She 
would be barely sixty.” 

“Ay, ay, but w'e must keep up the body 
so long as we’re here, Tammas.” 

“Weel, puttin’ it that way, I’m no sayin’ 
but ye’re right,” yielding unwillingly to the 
force of circumstances. 

“ We’re here the day and there the morn, 


Tammas. She was a fine wumman — Mis- 
tress Stirton — a weel-livin’ wumman; this 
’ill be a blend (mixture), I’m thinkin’.” 

“She slippit off sudden in the end; I’m 
judgin’ it’s from the Muirtown grocer; but a 
body cannot discreeminate on a day like 
this.” 

Before the glasses are empty all idea of 
drinking is dissipated, and one has a vague 
impression that he is at church. 

It was George Howe’s funeral that broke 
the custom and closed the “ service.” When 
I came into the garden where the neighbors 
were gathered, the undertaker was remov- 
ing his tray, and not a glass had been 
touched. Then I knew that Drumtochty had 
a sense of the fitness of things, and was 
stirred to its depths. 

“ Ye saw the wright carry in his tray,” 
said Drumsheugh, as we went home from 
the kirk-yard. “ Weel, yon’s the last sight 
o’t ye ’ill get, or I’m no Drumsheugh. I’ve 
no objection myself to a neighbor tastin’ at 
a funeral, all the more if he’s come from the 
upper end o’ the parish, and ye know I do 
not hold wi’ the teetotal folk. But there’s 
times and seasons, as the good Book says, 
and it would have been an awfu’ like busi- 
ness to look at a glass in Marget’s garden, 
and poor Domsie standin’ in behind the brier 
bush as if he could never lift his head again. 
Ye may get sharper folk in the uptak’ (com- 
prehension), but ye’ll no get a parish with 
better feelin’s. It ’ill be a kind o’ satisfac- 
tion to Marget when she hears of it. She 
was aye against tastin’, and I’m judgin’ her 
trouble has ended it at beerials.” 

“ Man, it was hard on some o’ yon lads 
the day, but there wasn’t one o’ them made 
a mudge. I kept my eye on Posty, but he 
never looked my way. He’s a drouthy body, 
but he has his feelin’s, has Posty.” 

Before the Doctor began his prayer, Whin- 
nie took me up to the room. 

“There’s two o’ Geordie’s college friends 
wi’ Marget; grand scholars, I’m told, and 
there’s anither I cannot weel make out. 


16 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


He’s terrible cast down, and Marget speaks 
as if she knew him.” 

It was a low T -roofed room, with a box bed 
and some pieces of humble furniture, fit 
only for a laboring man. But the choice 
treasures of Greece and Rome lay on the 
table, and on a shelf beside the bed college 
prizes and medals, while everywhere were 
the roses he loved. His peasant mother 
stood beside the body of her scholar son, 
and through the window came the bleating 
of distant sheep. It was the idyll of Scot- 
tish University life. 

George’s friends were characteristic men, 
each of his own type, and could only have 
met in the commonwealth of letters. One 
was of an ancient Scottish house which had 
fought for Mary against the Lords of the 
Congregation, followed Prince Charlie to 
Culloden, and were High Church and Tory 
to the last drop of their blood. Ludovic 
Gordon left Harrow with the reputation of a 
classic, and had expected to be the first at 
Edinboro’. It was Gordon, in fact, that 
Domsie feared in the great war, but he 
proved second to Marget’s son, and being of 
the breed of Prince Jonathan, which is the 
same the world over, he came to love our 
David as his own soul. The other, a dark 
little man, with a quick, fiery eye, was a 
Western Celt, who had worried his way 
from a fishing croft in Barra to be an easy 
first in Philosophy at Edinboro’, and George 
and Ronald Maclean were as brothers be- 
cause there is nothing so different as Scot- 
tish and Highland blood. 

“ Maister Gordon,” said Marget, “ this is 
George’s Homer, and he bade me tell you 
that he counted your freemlship one o’ the 
gifts o’ God.” 

For a brief space Gordon was silent, and, 
when he spoke, his voice sounded strange 
in that room. 

“ Your son was the finest scholar of my 
time, and a very perfect gentleman. He 
was also my true friend, and I pray God to 
console his mother.” And Ludovic Gordon 


bowed low over Marget’s worn hand as if 
she had been a queen. 

Marget lifted Plato, and it seemed to me 
that day, as if the dignity of our Lady of 
Sorrows had fallen upon her. 

“This is the book George chose for you, 
Maister Maclean, for he aye said to me ye 
had been a prophet, and shown him many 
deep things.” 

The tears sprang to the Celt’s eyes. 

“It wass like him to make all other men 
better than himself,” with the soft, sad 
Highland accent. 

The third man waited at the window till 
the scholars left, and then I saw he was 
none but one who had been a slave of sin 
and now w r as free. 

“ Andra Chaumers, George wished ye to 
have his Bible, and he expects ye to keep 
the tryst.” 

“ God helping me, I will,” said Chalmers, 
hoarsely; and from the garden ascended a 
voice, “ O God, who art a very present help 
in trouble.” 

The Doctor’s funeral, prayer was one of 
the glories of the parish, compelling even the 
Free Kirk to reluctant admiration, although 
they hinted that its excellence w T as rather of 
the letter than the spirit, and regarded its 
indiscriminate charity with suspicion. It 
opened with a series of extracts from the 
Psalms, relieved by tw^o excursions into the 
Minor Prophets, and led up to a sonorous 
recitation of the problem of immortality 
from Job, with its triumphant solution in the 
peroration of the fifteenth chapter of 1st 
Corinthians. Drumtochty men held their 
breath till the Doctor reached the crest of 
the hill (Hillocks disgraced himself once by 
dropping his staff at the very moment w^hen 
the Doctor w T as passing from Job to Paul), 
and then we relaxed w T hile the Doctor de- 
scended to local detail. It was understood 
that it took tw r enty years to bring the body 
of this prayer to perfection, and any change 
w r ould have been detected and resented. 

The Doctor made a good start, and had 


DOMSIE. 


17 


already sighted Job, when he was carried 
out of his course by a sudden current, and 
began to speak to God about Marget and her 
son, after a very simple fashion that 
brought a lump to the throat, till at last, as 
I imagine, the sight of the laddie working 
at his Greek in the study of a winter night 
came up before him, and the remnants of 


never again deny that the root of the matter 
is in the man, although much choked with 
the tares of worldliness and Arminianism.” 

“ He is a goot man, Lachlan,” replied 
Donald Menzies, another Celt, and he was 
our St. Francis, for “ every one that lovetli 
is born of God.” 

There was no hearse in Drumtochty, and 



the great prayer melted like an iceberg in 
the Gulf Stream. 

“ Lord, have pity upon us, for we all loved 
him, and we were all prood o’ him.” 

After the Doctor said “ Amen ” with 
majesty, one used to look at his neighbor, 
and the other would shut his eyes and shake 
his head, meaning, “There’s no use asking 
me, for it simply can’t be better done by 
living man.” This time no one remembered 
his neighbor, because every eye was fixed 
on the Doctor. Drumtochty was identifying 
its new minister. 

“ It may be that I hef judged him hardly,” 
said Lachlan Campbell, one of the Free Kirk 
Highlanders, and our St. Dominic. “ I shall 


we carried our dead by relays of four, who 
waded every stream unless more than knee 
deep, the rest following in straggling, pic- 
turesque procession over the moor and 
across the stepping - stones. Before we 
started, Marget came out and arranged 
George’s white silken hood upon the coffin 
with roses in its folds. 

She swept us into one brief flush of grati- 
tude, from Domsie to Posty. 

“ Neighbors, ye were all his friends, and 
he wanted ye to know how your trust was 
much help to him in his battle.” 

There was a stir within us, and it came to 
birth in Drumsheugh, of all men: 

“ Marget Hoo, this is no day for many 


18 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSH. 


words, but there’s just one heart in Drum- 
tochty, and it’s sore.” 

No one spoke to Domsie as we went down 
the cart track, with the ripe corn standing 
on either side, but he beckoned Chalmers to 
walk with him. 

“ Ye have heard him speak o’ me, then, 
Maister Jamieson?” 

“ Ay, oftentimes, and he said once that ye 
were hard driven, but that ye had trampled 
Satan under your feet.” 

“He didn’t tell ye all, for if it had not 
been for George Howe, I would not be worth 
callin’ a man this day. One night when he 
was workin’ hard for his honors examina- 
tion, and his disease was heavy upon him, 
poor fellow, he sought me oot where I was, 
and would not leave till I came wi’ him. 

“ * Go home,’ I said, ‘ Howe; it’s death for 
ye to be oot in this sleet and cold. Why 
not leave me to lie in the bed I have made?’ 

“ He took me by the arm into a passage. 
I see the gaslight on his white face, and- the 
shinin’ o’ his eyes. 

“ ‘ Because I have a mother . . .* 

“ Dominie, he pulled me oot o’ hell!” 

“ Me, too, Andra, but no your hell. Ye 
mind the Roman Triumph, when a general 
came home wi’ his spoils. Laddie, we’re the 
captives that go wi’ his chariot up the 
Capitol.” 

Donald Menzies was a man of moods, a id 
the Doctor’s prayer had loosed his imagina- 
tion so that he saw visions. 

“ Look,” said he as we stood on a ridge, 
“ I have seen it before in the book of 
Joshua.” 

Below the bearers had crossed a burn on 
foot and were ascending the slope where an 
open space of deep green was fringed with 
purple heather. 

“ The ark hass gone over Jordon, and 
George will have come into the Land of 
Promise.” 

The September sunshine glinted on the 
white silk George won with his blood, and 
fell like a benediction on the two figures 


that climbed the hard ascent close after the 
man they loved. 

Strangers do not touch our dead in Drum- 
tochty, but the eight of nearest blood lower 
the body into the grave. The order of prece- 
dence is keenly calculated, and the loss of a 
merited cord can never be forgiven. Marget 
had arranged everything with Wliinnie, and 
all saw the fitness. His father took the 
head, and the feet (next in honor) he gave 
to Domsie. 

“ Ye must do it. Marget said ye were o’ 
his own blood.” 

On the right side the cords were handed 
to the Doctor, Gordon and myself; and on 
the left to Drumsheugh, Maclean and Chal- 
mers. Domsie lifted the hood for Marget, 
but the roses he gently placed on George’s 
name. Then with, bent, uncovered heads, 
and in unbroken silence, we buried all that 
remained of our scholar. 

We always waited till the grave was filled 
and the turf laid down, a trying quarter of 
an hour. 

None gave any sign of what he felt save 
Drumsheugh, whose sordid mood had 
slipped off from a tender heart, and Chal- 
mers, who went behind a tombstone and 
sobbed aloud. Not even Posty asked the 
reason so much as by a look. But I marked 
that the Dominie took Chalmers home, and 
walked all the way with him to Muirtown 
station next morning. His friends erected 
a granite cross over George’s grave, and it 
was left to Domsie to choose the inscrip- 
tion. There was a day when it would have 
been, “ Whom the gods love die young.” 
Since then Domsie had seen the kingdom of 
God, and this is graven where the roses 
bloomed fresh every summer for twenty 
years, till Marget was laid with her son: 


George Howe, M. a., 

DIED SEPTEMBER 22, 1869, 

AGED 21. 

“They shall bring the glory and honor of 
the nations into it.” 


A HIGHLAND MYSTIC. 


19 

It was late November when I went to see before that cross, the sun struggled from 
George’s memorial, and the immortal hope behind a bank of cloud, and picked out every 
was burning low in my heart; but as I stood letter of the Apocalypse in gold. 


A HIGHLAND MYSTIC. 


WHAT EYE HATH NOT SEEN. 

TRANGE ministers who 
came to assist at the 
Free Kirk Sacr;ament 
were much impressed 
with the elders, and 
never forgot the trans- 
figuration of Donald 
Menzies, which used to begin about the mid- 
dle of the “ action ” sermon, and was com- 
pleted at the singing of the last Psalm. Once 
there was no glory, because the minister, be- 
ing still young, expounded a new theory of 
the atonement, of German manufacture, and 
Donald’s face was piteous to behold. It 
haunted the minister for months, and 
brought to confusion a promising course of 
sermons on the contribution of Hegel to 
Christian thought. Donald never laid the 
blame of such calamities on the preacher, 
but accepted them as a just judgment on his 
blindness of heart. 

“ We have had the open vision,” Donald 
explained to his friend Lachlan Campbell, 
who distributed the responsibility in an- 
other fashion, “ and we would not see — so 
the veil hass fallen.” 

Donald sat before the pulpit and filled the 
hearts of nervous probationers with dismay, 
not because his face was critical, but be- 
cause it seemed non-conducting, upon which 
their best passages would break like spray 
against a rock. It was by nature the dullest 
you ever saw, with hair descending low 
upon the forehead, and preposterous whis- 
kers dominating everything that remained, 
except a heavy mouth, and brown, lack- 


lustre eyes. For a while Donald crouched 
in the corner of the pew, his head sunk on 
his breast, a very picture of utter hopeless- 
ness. But as the Evangel began to play 
round his heart, he would fix the preacher 
with rapid, wistful glances, as of one who 
had awaked but hardly dared believe such 
things could be true. Suddenly a sigh per- 
vaded six pews, a kind of gentle breath of 
penitence, faith, love and hope mingled to- 
gether like the incense of the sanctuary, 
and Donald lifted up his head. His eyes 
are now aflame, and those sullen lips are 
refining into curves of tenderness. From 
the manse pew I watch keenly, for at any 
moment a wonderful sight may be seen. A 
radiant smile will pass from his lips to his 
eyes and spread over his face, as when the 
sun shines on a fallow field, and the rough 
furrows melt into warmth and beauty. Don- 
ald’s gaze is now fixed on a window above 
the preacher’s head, for on these great days 
that window is to him as the gate of heaven. 
All I could see would be a bit of blue, and 
the fretted sunlight through the swaying 
branches of an old plane tree. But Donald 
has seen his Lord hanging upon the Cross 
for him, and the New Jerusalem descending 
like a bride adorned for her husband, more 
plainly than if Perugino’s great Crucifixion, 
with the kneeling saints, and Angelico’s 
Outer Court of Heaven, with the dancing 
angels, had been hung in our little Free Kirk. 
When he went down the aisle with the 
flagon in the Sacrament, he walked as one 
in a dream, and wist not that his face 
shone. 

There was an interval after the Sacra- 



20 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


ment, when the stranger was sent to his 
room with light refreshments, to prepare 
himself for the evening, and the elders 
dined with the minister. Before the intro- 
duction of the Highlanders conversation had 
an easy play within recognized limits, and 
was always opened by Burnbrae, who had 
come out in ’43, and w T as understood to have 
read the Confession of Faith. 

“ Ye gave us a grand discoorse this 
mornin’, sir, both instructive and edifyin’; 
we were just sayin’ cornin’ up the garden 
that ye were never heard to more ad- 
vantage.” 

The minister was much relieved, because 
he had not been hopeful during the week, 
and was still dissatisfied, as he explained at 
length, with the passage on the Colossian 
heresy. 

When these doubts had been cleared up, 
Burnbrae did his best by the minister up- 
stairs, who had submitted himself to the 
severe test of table addresses. 

“ Yon were very suitable words at the 
second table; he’s a spiritually-minded man, 
Maister Cosh, and has the right ring aboot 
him.” 

Or at the worst, when Burnbrae’s courage 
had failed: 

“ Maister McKitirick had a fine text afore 
the table. I aye like to see a man go to the 
Song o’ Solomon on the Sacrament Sabbath. 
I mind Dr. Guthrie on that very subject 
twenty years ago.” 

Having paid its religious dues, conver- 
sation was now allowed some freedom, and 
it was wonderful how many things could be 
touched on, always from a sacramental 
standpoint. 

“ We’ve been awfu’ favored wi’ weather, 
the day, and ought to be thankfu’. If it 
keeps on like this I wouldn’t say but 
there’ll be a good harvest. That’s a fine 
crop of oats ye have in the low park, Burn- 
brae.” 

“ I’ve seen worse; they’re fillin’ no that 
bad. I was just thinkin’ as I came to the 


park that there was oats in that field the 
sacrament after the Disruption.” 

“ Did ye notice that Rachel Skene sat in 
her seat through the tables? Says I. ‘Are 
ye no goin’ forward, Mistress Skene, or have 
ye lost your token?’ ‘ No, no,’ says she, ‘ my 
token’s safe in my handkerchief; but I 
couldn’t get to kirk yesterday, and I never 
went forward without my Saturday yet, 
and I’m no to begin noo.’ ” 

“ She was aye a right-thinkin’ woman, 
Rachel, there’s no mistake o’ that; I wonder 
hoo her son is gettin’ on wi’ that fairrn he’s 
takin’; I doubt it’s rack-rented.” 

It was an honest, satisfying conversation, 
and reminded one of the parish of Drum- 
tochty. 

When the Highlanders came in, Burnbrae 
was deposed after one encounter, and the 
minister was reduced to a state of timid 
suggestion. There were days when they 
would not speak one word, and were under- 
stood to be lost in meditation; on others 
they broke in on any conversation that was 
going from levels beyond the imagination 
of Drumtochty. Had this happened in the 
Auld Manse, Drumsheugh would have taken 
it for granted that Donald was “ feeling ill,” 
and recommended the bottle which cured 
him of a cold in the fifties. But the Free 
Kirk had been taught that the Highlanders 
were unapproachable in spiritual attain- 
ments, and even Burnbrae took his discipline 
meekly. 

“ It was a mercy the moon changed last 
week, Maister Menzies, or I’m thinkin’ it 
had been a wet sacrament.” 

Donald came out of a maze where he had 
been wandering in great peace. “ I wass 
not hearing that the moon had anything to 
do in the matter. Oh, no, but he wass bound 
hand and foot by a mighty man.” 

‘‘Who was bound? I’m not just followin’ 
ye, Maister Menzies.” 

“ The Prince of the power of the air. Oh, 
yes, and he shall not be loosed till the occa- 
sion be over. I have had a sign.” 


A HIGHLAND MYSTIC. 


21 


After which conversation on the weather 
languished. 

Perhaps the minister fared worse m an 
attempt to extract a certificate of efficiency 
from Lachlan Campbell in favor of a 
rhetorical young preacher. 

“ A very nice speaker, and well pleased 
with himself. But I would be thinking 
when he was giving his images. Oh, yes, 
I would be thinking. There wass a laddie 
fishing in the burn before my house, and a 
very pretty laddie he wass. He had a rod 
and a string, and he threw his line beauti- 
ful. It wass a great peety he had no hook, 
for it iss a want, and you do not catch many 
fish without a hook. But I shall be glad 
that you are pleased, sir, and all the 
elders.” 

These were only passing incidents, and 
left no trace, but the rebuke Donald gave to 
Burnbrae will be told while an elder lives. 
One of the last of the old mystical school 
had described the great mystery of our 
Faith with such insight and pathos that 
Donald had stood by the table weeping 
gently, and found himself afterwards in the 
manse. 

The silence was more than could be borne, 
and his former responsibility fell on Burn- 
brae. 

“ It was wonderful, and I cannot mind 
hearing the like o’ yon at the tables; but I 
was sorry to see the Doctor so failed. He 
was bent double; I doubt it’s a touch o’ 
rheumatism, or maybe lumbago.” 

Donald blazed. “ Bent down with rheu- 
matism, iss that what you say? Oh, yes, 
it will be rheumatism. Hass the sight of 
your eyes left you, and hef you no discern- 
ment? Did ye not see that he wass bowed 
to the very table with the power of the 
Word ? for it wass a fire in his bones, and he 
wass baptized with the Holy Ghost.” 

When the elders gathered in the vestry, 
the minister asked what time the preacher 
might have for his evening sermon, and 
Donald again burst forth: 


“ I am told that in towns the Gospel goes 
by minutes, like the trains at the stations; 
but there iss no time - table here, for we 
shall wait till the sun goes down to hear 
all things God will be sending by his ser- 
vant.” 

Good memories differ about the text that 
Sacrament evening, and the length of the 
sermon, but all hold as a treasure forever 
what happened when the book was closed. 
The people were hushed into a quiet that 
might be felt, and the old man, swayed by 
the spirit of the Prophets, began to repeat 
the blessings and curses in the Bible be- 
tween Genesis and Revelation, and after 
each pair, he cried, with heart - piercing 
voice, “ Choose this day which ye will 
take!” till Donald could contain himself no 
longer. 

“ Here iss the man who hass deserved all 
the curses, and here iss the man who 
chooses all the blessings!” 

The preacher paused for five seconds, 
while no man could breathe, and then, lift- 
ing up his hand to heaven, he said, with an 
indescribable authority and tenderness, 
“ The Lord fulfill the desire of your heart 
both in this world and in that which is to 
come.” 

Then the congregation sang, after the 
ancient custom of our parts: 

“ Now, blessed be the Lord our God, 

The God of Israel,” 

and Donald’s face was one glory, because he 
saw in the soft evening light of the upper 
window the angels of God ascending and 
descending upon the Son of man. 

It was after this that the Free Kirk min- 
ister occupied six months in proving that 
Moses did not write Deuteronomy, and 
Lachlan was trying for the same period to 
have the minister removed from Drum- 
tochty. Donald, deprived by one stroke of 
both his friends, fell back on me, and told 
me many things I loved to hear, although 
they were beyond my comprehension. 


22 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


“ It wass not always so with me, as it iss 
this day, for I once had no ear for God’s 
voice, and my eyes were holden that I saw 
not the spiritual world. But sore sickness 
came upon me, and I wass nigh unto death, 
and my soul awoke within me and began to 
cry like a child for its mother. All my days 
I had lived on Loch Tay, and now I thought 
of the other country into which I would 
have to be going, where I had no nest, and 
my soul would be driven to and fro in the 
darkness as a bird on the moor of Rannoch. 

“ Janet sent for the minister, and he was 
very kind, and he spoke about my sickness 
and my farm, and I said nothing. For I 
wass hoping he would tell me what I wass 
to do for my soul. But he began upon the 
sheep market at Amulree, and I knew he 
wass also in the dark. After he left I turned 
my face to the wall and wept. 

“ Next morning was the Sabbath, and I 
said to Janet: ‘ Wrap me in my plaid, and 
put me in a cart, and take me to Aber- 
feldy.’ ‘ And what will ye be doing at 
Aberfeldy? and you will die on the road.’ 
‘ There iss,’ said I, ‘ a man there who knows 
the way of the soul, and it iss better to die 
with my face to the light.’ 

“ They set me in a corner of the church 
where I wass thinking no man could see 
me, and I cried in my heart without ceasing, 

‘ Lord, send me — send me a word from thy 
mouth.’ 

“ When the minister came into the pulpit 
he gave me a strange look, and this wass 
his text: ‘ Loose him and let him go.’ 

“ As he preached, I knew I wass Lazarus, 
with the darkness of the grave around me, 
and my soul straitly bound. I could do 
nothing, but I wass longing with all my 
strength. 

“Then the minister stopped, and he said: 

‘ There iss a man in this church, and he 
will know himself who it iss. When I came 
in this morning, I saw a shadow on his face, 
and I knew not whether it was the wing of 
the Angel of Life or the Angel of Death 


passing over him, but the Lord has made it 
plain to me, and I see the silver feathers of 
the Angel of the Covenant, and this shall be 
a sign unto that man, “ Loose him and let 
him go.” ’ 

“ While he wass still speaking, I felt my 
soul carried out into the light of God’s face, 
and my grave clothes were taken off one by 
one as Janet would unwind my plaid, and 
I stood a living man before Christ. 

“ It wass a sweet June day as we drove 
home, and I lay in the sunshine, and every 
bird that sang, and the burnies by the road- 
side, and the rustling of the birch leaves in 
the wind — oh, yes, and the sound of the 
horse’s feet, were saying, ‘ Loose him and let 
him go.’ 

“ Loch Tay looked black angry as we 
came by its side in the morning, and I said 
to Janet: 

“ ‘ It iss the Dead Sea, and I shall be as 
Sodom and Gomorrah;’ but in the evening 
it wass as a sea of glass mingled with fire, 
and I heard the song of Moses and the Lamb 
sweeping over the Loch, but this wass still 
the sweetest word to me, ‘ Loose him and 
let him go.’ ” 

AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES AND 
POWERS. 

HE powers of dark- 
ness had been mak- 
ing a dead set upon 
Donald all winter, 
and towards spring 
he began to lose 
hope. He came to 
the cottage once a 
week with news 
from the seat of war, and I could distin- 
guish three zones of depression. Within the 
first he bewailed his absolute indifference to 
spiritual things, and was content to describe 
himself as Achan. The sign that he had en- 
tered the second was a recurring reference 
to apostasy, and then you had the melan- 



A HIGHLAND MYSTIC. 


23 


choly satisfaction of meeting the living 
representative of Simon Peter. When he 
passed into the last zone of the Purgatorio, 
Donald was beyond speech, and simply al- 
lowed one to gather from allusions to thirty 
pieces of silver that he was Judas Iscariot. 
It happened that my diagnosis of Donald’s 
condition was much helped by the analogy 
of a visitor at the cottage, w T hose books got 
at times on his nerves. When flies danced 
before his eyes he took no new work; when 
they gave place to rattlesnakes, he curtailed 
his work; but when a procession of hippo- 
potami arrived on the scene, he knew it was 
time to cease from work altogether. 

“ Three hippopotami came end on, this 
morning,” he would cheerfully explain; “so, 
if you don’t mind, we’ll ‘.ake a tramp across 
the moor.” 

So long as it was only Achan or Simon 
Peter that came to sit with me, one was not 
gravely concerned, but Judas Iscariot meant 
that Donald had entered the Valley of the 
Shadow. 

He made a spirited rally at the winter 
Sacrament, and distinguished himself 
greatly on the evening of the Fast Day. 
Being asked to pray, Donald continued for 
five and twenty minutes, and unfolded the 
w T ords of the devil in such minute and vivid 
detail that Burnbrae talks about it to this 
day. It was a mighty wrestle, and it w T as 
perhaps natural that Donald should groan 
heavily at regular intervals, and acquaint 
the meeting how the conflict went, but the 
younger people w T ere much shaken, and the 
edification even of the serious was not with- 
out reserve. 

While Donald still lingered on the field of 
battle to gather the spoils and guard against 
any sudden return of the enemy, the elders 
had a hurried consultation in the vestry, and 
Burnbrae put the position with admirable 
force. 

“Nobody can deny that it was a most 
extraordinary prayer, and it passes me hoo 
he knows so much aboot the deevil. In fact 


it’s a preevilege to have such an experienced 
hand among us, and I wouldn’t offend Don- 
ald Menzies for onything. But yon groanin’ 
was a wee bit discomposin’, and when he 
said, kind o’ confidential, ‘ He’s losing his 
grup,’ my own folk couldn’t keep their 
coontenance. Weel, I was thinkin’ that the 
best plan w-ould be for Maister Campbell 
just to give a bit advice, and tell Donald 
that we’re thankfu’ to hear him at the 
meetin’, and mighty lifted wi’ his petee- 
tions, but it would be an obleegation if he 
would leave oot the groans and tell us after- 
wards w T hat w’as goin’ on, maybe in the 
Session.” 

Lachlan accepted his commission with 
quite unusual diffidence, and offered a very 
free translation on the w T ay home. 

“ It wass a mercy to have you at the meet- 
in’ this night, Donald Menzies, for I saw 
that Satan had come in great strength, and 
it iss not every man that can withstand him. 
But you will not be ignorant of his devices; 
oh, no, you will be knowing him very well. 
Satan had not much to say before the 
prayer wass done, and I will not be expect- 
ing to see him again at this occasion. It 
wass the elders said, ‘ Donald Menzies hass 
trampled Satan under foot.’ Oh, yes, and 
very glad men they were, for it iss not given 
to them. But I would be thinking, iss it 
good to let the devil hear you groaning in 
the battle, and I would be wishing that you 
had kept all your groans, and given them to 
me on the road.” 

“ Iss it the groans you are not liking?” 
retorted Donald, stung by this unexpected 
criticism. “ And wat iss wrong with groan- 
ing? But I have the Scripture, and I will 
not be caring what you say, Lachlan Camp- 
bell.” 

“ If you have a warrant for groaning, it 
iss this man that will be glad to hear it, for 
I am not remembering that passage.” 

“ Maybe you have not read ‘ Maketh in- 
tercession with groanings,’ but it iss a very 
good Scripture, and it iss in my Bible.” 


24 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


“ All Scripture iss good, Donald Menzies, 
but it iss not lawful to divide Scripture, and 
it will read in my Bible, ‘ groanings which 
cannot be uttered,’ and I w r ass saying this 
would be the best way with your groans.” 

Donald came in to tell me how his com- 
panion in arms had treated him, and was 
still sore. 

“ He iss in the bondage of the letter these 
days, for he will be always talking about 
Moses with the minister, and I am not hear- 
ing that iss good for the soul.” 

If even Lachlan could not attain to Don- 
ald, it "was perhaps no discredit that the 
Drumtochty mind was at times hopelessly 
perplexed. 

“ He’s a good cratur, and terrible gifted in 
prayer,” Netherton explained to Burnbrae, 
after a prayer-meeting, when Donald had 
temporarily abandoned Satan, and given 
himself to autobiography, “ but yon w r asn’t 
a very ceevil way to speak aboot his faither 
and mitlier.” 

“ 1 doubt ye’re imaginin’, Netherton. Don- 
ald never mentioned his folk the night, 
and it’s no likely he would in the prayer- 
meetin’.” 

“There’s no imaginin’ aboot it; I heard 
him with my own ears say twice, ‘ My 
father was an Amorite, and my mother a 
Hittite.’ I’ll take my oath on it. Noo, I do 
not know Donald’s ancestors myself, for he’s 
from Tayside, but supposin’ they were as 
bad as bad could be, it’s no for him to 
blacken his ain blood, and him an elder.” 

“Toots, Netherton! ye’re off it altogether. 
Do ye no see yon’s Bible langidge oot o’ a 
Prophet, or maybe Kings, and Donald was 
usin’ it in a feegurative capacity.” 

“ Feegurative or no feegurative, Burn- 
brae, it doesn’t matter; it’s a pitifu’ job 
diggin’ through the Bible for ill words to 
miscall your folk with afore the public.” 

Burnbrae gave up the contest in despair, 
feeling himself that Old Testament allu- 
sions were risky, and that Donald’s quota- 
tion was less than felicitous. 


Donald’s prayers were not known outside 
the Free Kirk circle, but his encounters with 
the evil one were public property, and 
caused a general shudder. Drumtochty was 
never sure who might not be listening, and 
considered that it was safer not to meddle 
with certain nameless people. But Donald 
waged an open warfare in every corner of 
the parish, in the kirk, by the wayside, in 
his house, on the road to market, and was 
ready to give any one the benefit of his 
experiences. 

“ Donald Menzies is in yonder,” said 
Hillocks, pointing to the smithy, whose fire 
sent fitful gleams across the dark road, 
“ and he’s carryin’ on most fearsome. Ye 
would think, to hear him speak, that old 
Hornie was goin’ loose in the parish; it sent 
a shiver doon my back. Faith, it’s no safe 
to be much wi’ the body, for the deil and 
Donald seem never separate. Hear him noo, 
hear him!” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Donald, addressing the 
smith and two horror-stricken plowmen, 
“ I have seen him, and he hass withstood 
me on the road. It w r ass late, and I wass 
thinking on the shepherd and the sheep, and 
Satan will come out from the w r ood below 
Hillocks’ farm-house (“ Gude preserve us!” 
from Hillocks) and say, ‘ That word is not 
for you, Donald Menzies.’ But I w r ass strong 
that night, and I said, ‘^Neither shall any 
pluck them out of my hand,’ and he will not 
wait long after that, oh, no, and I did not 
follow him into the w T ood.” 

The smith, released by the conclusion of 
the tale, blew a mighty blast, and the fire 
burst into a red blaze, throwing into relief 
the black figure of the smith and the wiiite 
faces of the plow r men; glancing from the 
teeth of harrows and the blades of scythes, 
and the cruel knives of reaping machines, 
and from instruments with triple prongs; 
and lighting up with a hideous glare the 
black, sooty recesses of the smithy. 

“ Keep us all!” whispered Hillocks, 
clutching my arm, “ it’s little better than 


A HIGHLAND MYSTIC. 


25 


tlie ill place. I wish to goodness I was safe 
in my own hoose!” 

These were only indecisive skirmishes, for 
one evening Donald came to my den with 
despair written on every feature, and I 
knew that fighting had begun at the center, 
and that he was worsted. 

It was half an hour before he became 
articulate, during which time 
he sighed as if the end of all 
things had come, but at last 
he told me that he had re- 
signed h i s eldership, and 
would absent himself in fu- 
ture from the Free Kirk. 

“ It hass been a weary 
winter, when minister and 
people have gone into captiv- 
ity, and on Sabbath the word 
wass taken altogether from 
the minister’s mouth, and he 
spake a language which we 
understood not [it w’as the 
first of three sermons on the 
Hexateuch, and had treated of 
the Jehovistic and Elohistic 
documents with much learn- 
ing], and I will be asking all 
the way back, ‘ Iss it I?’ 

“Oh, yes, and when I opened 
my Bible this iss the word I 
will see, ‘ That thou doest do 
quickly,’ and I knew it wass 
my sins that had brought 
great judgments on the peo- 
ple, and turned the minister 
into a man of stammering lips and another 
tongue. 

“ It wass a mercy that the roof did not 
fall and bury all the people with me; but we 
will not be tempting the Almighty, for I 
have gone outside, and now there will be 
peace and blessing.” 

When we left the lighted room and stood 
on the doorstep, Donald pointed to the dark- 
ness. “ There iss no star, and you will be 
remembering what John saw when the door 


opened and Judas went out. * It wass 
night,’ — oh, yes, it iss night for me, but it 
will be light for them.” 

As weeks went past, and Donald was seen 
neither at kirk nor market, my heart went 
out to the lonely man in his soul conflict, 
and, although there was no help in me, I 
went to ask how it fared with him. After 


the footpath disentangled itself from the 
pine woods and crossed the burn by two firs 
nailed together, it climbed a steep ascent to 
Donald’s house, but I had barely touched 
the foot when I saw him descending, his 
head in the air and his face shining. Before 
any words passed I knew that the battle 
had been fought and won. 

“ It wass last night, and I will be coming 
to tell you. He hass gone like darkness 
when the sun ariseth, and I am delivered.” 



26 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


There are stories one cannot hear sitting, 
and so we paced the meadow below, rich 
in primroses, with a sloping bank of gorse 
behind us, and the pines before us, and the 
water breaking over the stones at our feet. 

“ It iss three weeks since I saw you, and 
all that time I have been wandering on the 
hill by day and lying in the barn at night, 
for it wass not good to be with people, and 
Satan wass always saying to me, ‘ Judas 
went to his own place.’ My dog will lay 
his head on my knee, and be sorry for me, 
and the dumb animals will be looking at 
me out of their great eyes, and be moaning. 

“ The lads are goot singers, and there 
wass always a sound of Psalms on the 
farm, oh, yes, and it wass pleasant to come 
from the market and hear the Psalms at the 
foot of the hill. It wass like going up to 
Jerusalem. But there would be no Psalms 
these days, for the lads could not sing when 
their father’s soul wass going down into the 
pit. 

“ Oh, no, and there wass no prayer last 
night, but I told the lads to go to bed, and 
I lay down before the fire to wrestle once 
more before I perished. 

“ Janet will offer this word and the other, 
and I will be trying them all, but he wass 
tearing them away as quick as I could 
speak, and he always said, ‘ his own place.’ 

“ * There iss no hope for me!’ I cried, ‘ but 
it iss a mercy that you and the lads will be 
safe in the City, and maybe the Lord will 
let me see you all through the gate.’ And 
that wass lifting me, but then I will hear 
‘his own place,’ ‘his own place,’ and my 


heart began to fail, and I wass nigh to de- 
spair. 

“ Then I heard a voice, oh, yes, as plain 
as you are hearing me, ‘ The blood of Jesus 
Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ 
It wass like a gleam from the Mercy-seat, 
but I would be waiting to see whether 
Satan had any answer, and my heart wass 
standing still. But there wass no word from 
him, not one word. Then I leaped to my 
feet and cried, ‘ Get thee behind me, Satan,* 
and I will look around, and there wass no 
one to be seen but Janet in her chair, with 
the tears on her cheeks, and she wass say- 
ing, ‘ Thanks be to God, which giveth us 
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ 

“ The lads would not be sleeping very 
sound when their father wass fighting for 
his life, oh, no, and I am not saying but 
maybe they would be praying. It wass not 
very long before they came down, and 
Hamish will be looking at my face, and 
then he will get the books, and this iss the 
Psalm we sing: 

“ I love the Lord, because my voice 
And prayers he did hear. 

I, while I live, will call on him, 

Who bowed to me his ear. 

* * * * * if 

God merciful and righteous is, 

Yea, gracious is our Lord; 

God saves the meek; I was brought low, 
He did me help afford.” 

This was the victory of Donald Menzies, 
and on reaching home I marked that the 
early roses were beginning to bloom over the 
door through which Donald had gone out 
into the darkness. 


HIS MOTHER’S SERMON. 


H E was an ingenuous lad, with the callow 
simplicity of a theological college still 
untouched, and had arrived on the preceding 
Monday at the Free Kirk manse with four 
cartloads of furniture and a maiden aunt. 


For three days he roamed from room to 
room in the excitement of householding, and 
made suggestions which were received with 
hilarious contempt; then he shut himself up 
in his study to prepare the great sermon, 


HIS MOTHERS SERMON. 


and his aunt went about on tiptoe. During 
meals on Friday he explained casually that 
his own wish was to preach a simple ser- 
mon, and that he would have done so had he 
been a private individual, but as he had held 
the MacWhammel scholarship a deliverance 
was expected by the country. He would be 
careful and say nothing rash, but it was due 
to himself to state the present position of 
tneological thought, and he might have to 
quote once or twice from Ewald. 

His aunt was a saint, with that firm grasp 
of truth, and tender mysticism, whose com- 
bination is the charm of Scottish piety, and 
her face was troubled. While the minister 
was speaking in his boyish complacency, 
her thoughts were in a room where they had 
both stood, five years before, by the death- 
bed of his mother. 

He was broken that day, and his sobs 
shook the bed, for he was his mother’s only 
son, and fatherless, and his mother, brave 
and faithful to the last, was bidding him 
farewell. 

“ Do not weep like that, John, nor break 
your heart, for it’s the will o’ God, and 
that’s aye best. 

“ Here’s my watch and chain,” placing 
them beside her son, who could not touch 
them, nor would lift his head, “ and when ye 
feel the chain aboot your neck it will mind 
ye o’ your mither’s arms. Ye’ll not forget 
me, John, I know that weel, and I’ll never 
forget ye. I’ve loved ye here, and I’ll love ye 
yonder. There’ll no be an hour when I’ll no 
pray for ye, and I’ll know better what to ask 
than I did here, so do not be comfortless.” 

Then she felt for his head, and stroked it 
once more, but he could not look nor speak. 

“ Ye’ll follow Christ, and if he offers ye his 
cross ye’ll not refuse it, for he aye carries 
the heavy end himself. He’s guided your 
mither all these years, and been as good as 
a husband since your faither’s death, and 
he’ll hold me fast to the end. He’ll keep 
ye, too; and, John, I’ll be watchin’ for ye. 
Ye ’ill no fail me,” and her poor, cold hand 


that had tended him all his days, tightened 
on his head. 

“ I cannot see ye noo, John, but I know 
ye’re there, and I’ve just one other wish. If 
God calls ye to the ministry, ye ’ill no re- 
fuse, and the first day ye preach in your 
own kirk, speak a good word for Jesus 
Christ; an’ John, I’ll hear ye that day, 
though ye’ll no see me, and I’ll be satisfied.” 

A minute after she whispered, “ Pray for 
me,” and he cried, “ My mother, my 
mother!” 

It was a full prayer, and left nothing un- 
asked of Mary’s Son. 

“ John,” said his aunt, “ your mother is 
with the Lord;” and he saw death for the 
first time, but it was beautiful with the 
peace that passetli all understanding. 

Five years had passed, crowded with 
thought and work, and his aunt wondered 
whether he remembered that last request, 
or, indeed, had heard it in his sorrow. 

“ What are you thinking about, aunt? Are 
you afraid of my theology?” 

“ No, John, it’s no that, laddie, for I know 
ye ’ill say what ye believe to be true with- 
out fear o’ man,” and she hesitated. 

“ Come, out with it, auntie; you’re my only 
mother now, you know,” and the minister 
put his arm round her, “ as well as the kind- 
est, bonniest, goodest auntie ever man had.” 

Below his student self-conceit he was a. 
good lad, and sound of heart. 

“ Shame on ye, John, to make a fool o’ an 
old doting body. But ye’ll no come round me 
with your flattery. I know ye too weel,” 
and as she caught the likeness in his face, 
her eyes filled suddenly. 

“What’s the matter, auntie? Will ye no 
tell me?” 

“ Do not be angry with me, John, but I’m 
concerned aboot Sabbath, for I’ve been 
prayin’ ever since ye were called to Drum- 
tochty that it might be a great day, and that 
I might see ye cornin’ to your people, laddie, 
with the beauty o’ the Lord upon ye, ac- 
cordin’ to the prophecy: ‘How beautiful 


28 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSH 


upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth 
peace,’ ” and again she stopped. 

“Go on, auntie, go on,” he whispered; 
“ say all that’s in your mind.” 

“ It’s no for me to advise you, who am 
only a simple old woman, who knows 
nothin’ but her Bible and the Catechism; 
and it’s not that I’m feared for the new 
views, or aboot your faith, for I aye mind 
there’s' many things the Speerit has still to 
teach us, and I know weel the man that fol- 
lows Christ will never lose his way in any 
thicket. But it’s the folk, John, I’m anxious 
aboot; the flock o’ sheep the Lord has given 
ye to feed for him.” 

She could not see his face, but she felt 
him gently press her hand, and took cour- 
age. 

“Ye must mind, laddie, that they’re no 
clever and learned like what ye are, but just 
plain country folk, each one wi’ his own 
temptation, and all sore bothered wi’ many 
cares o’ this world. They ’ill need a clear 
word to comfort their hearts and show them 
the way everlastin’. Ye ’ill say what’s 
right, no doubt o’ that, and everybody ’ill be 
pleased wi’ ye, but oh, laddie, be sure ye 
say a good word for Jesus Christ.” 

The minister’s face whitened, and his arm 
relaxed. He rose hastily and went to the 
door, but in going out he gave his aunt an 
understanding look, such as passes between 
people who have stood together in a sorrow. 
The son had not forgotten his mother’s re- 
quest. 

The manse garden lies toward the west, 
and as the minister paced its little square 
of turf, the sun was going down behind the 
Grampians. Black, massy clouds had be- 
gun to gather in the evening, and threatened 
to obscure the sunset, which was the finest 
sight a Drumtochty man was ever likely to 
see, and a means of grace to every sensible 
heart in the glen. But the sun had beat 
back the clouds on either side, and shot 
them through with glory, and now between 


piled billows of light he went along a shin- 
ing pathway into the Gates of the West. 
The minister stood still ’before that spec- 
tacle, his face bathed in the golden glory, 
and then before his eyes the gold deepened 
into an awful red, and the red passed into 
shades of violet and green, beyond painter’s 
hand or the imagination of man. It seemed 
to him as if a victorious saint had entered 
through the gates into the city, and the 
after-glow of his mother’s life fell solemnly 
on his soul. The last trace of sunset had 
faded from the hills when the minister came 
in, and his face was of one who had seen a 
vision. He asked his aunt to have worship 
with the servant, for he must be alone in his 
study. 

It was a cheerful room in the daytime, 
with its southern window, through which 
the minister saw the roses touching the very 
glass, and beyond dwarf apple trees lining 
the garden walks. It was a pleasant room 
now, when the curtains were drawn and the 
light of the lamp fell on the books he loved. 
One by one he had arranged the hard- 
bought treasures of student days in the 
little book-case, and had planned for himself 
that sweetest of pleasures, an evening of 
desultory reading. But his books went out 
of mind as he looked at the sermon shining 
beneath the glare of the lamp, and demand- 
ing judgment. He had finished its last page 
with honest pride that afternoon, and had 
declaimed it, facing the southern window, 
with a success that amazed himself. His 
hope was that he might be kept humble, 
and not called to Edinburgh for at least two 
years; and now he lifted the sheets with 
fear. The brilliant opening, with its his- 
torical parallel, this review of modern 
thought reinforced by telling quotations, 
that trenchant criticism of old-fashioned 
views, would not deliver. For the audience 
had vanished, and left one care-worn but 
ever beautiful face, whose gentle eyes were 
waiting with a yearning look. Twice he 
crushed the sermon in his hands, and turned 


HIS MOTHER'S SERMON. 

to the fire his aunt’s care had kindled, and 
twice he repented and smoothed it out. 

What else could he say now to the people? 
and then in the stillness of the room he 
heard a voice, “ Speak a good word for 
Jesus Christ.” 

Next minute he was kneeling on the 
hearth, and pressing the magnum opus that 
was to shake Drumtochty into the heart 
of the red fire, and he saw, half-smiling 
and half-weeping, the impressive words, 

“ Semitic environment,” shrivel up and 
disappear. As the last black flake flut- 
tered out of sight, the face looked at 
him again, but this time the sweet /, 
brown eyes were full of peace. I j 

Very likely it w T as no masterpiece, but ' m 
only the crude production of a lad who [i: 
knew little of letters and nothing of the ' 
world. Very likely it would have done 
neither harm nor good, but it was his 
best, and he gave it for love’s sake, and 
I suppose that there is nothing 
in a human life so precious to 
God, neither clever words nor 
famous deeds, as the sacrifices of 
love. 

The moon flooded his bedroom 
with silver light, and he felt the 
presence of his mother. His bed 
stood ghostly with its white cur- 
tains, and he remembered how 
every night his mother knelt by 
its side in prayer for him. He is a boy once 
more, and repeats the Lord’s Prayer, then 
he cries again, “ My mother! my mother!” 
and an indescribable contentment fills his 
heart. 

His prayer next morning was very short, 
but afterwards he stood at the window^ for a 
space, and, when he turned, his aunt said: 

“ Ye ’ill get your sermon, and it ’ill be 
worth hearing.” 

“ How t did ye know?” 

But she only smiled. “ I heard you pray.” 

When he shut himself into the study that 
Saturday morning he heard her go into her 


29 

room above, and he knew she went to inter- 
cede for him. 

An hour afterwards he was pacing the 
garden in such anxious thought that he 
crushed with his foot a rose lying on the 
path, and then she saw his face suddenly 
lighten, and he hurried to the house, but 
first he plucked a bunch of forget-me-nots. 



mm m 
/M&WM wmmm 


He looked at the sermon.— See page 28. 

In the evening she found them on his ser- 
mon. 

Two hours later — for still she prayed and 
w T atched in faithfulness to mother and son 
— she observed him come out and wander 
round the garden in great joy. He lifted up 
the soiled rose and put it in his coat; he re- 
leased a butterfly caught in some mesh; he 
buried his face in fragrant honeysuckle. 
Then she knew that his heart was full of 
love, and that it would be well on the mor- 
row. 

W T hen the bell began to ring, the minister 
rose from his knees and went to his aunt’s 


30 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


room to be robed, for this was a covenant 
between them. 

His gown was spread out in its black 
silken glory, but he sat down in despair. 

“Auntie, whatever shall we do? for I’ve 
forgot the bands.” 

“ But I’ve not forgot them, John, and here 
are six pair wrought with my own hands; 
and now sit still and I’ll tie them round my 
laddie’s neck.” 

When she had given the last touch, and he 
was ready to go, a sudden seriousness fell 
upon them. 

“ Kiss me, auntie.” 

“ For your mother, and her God be with 
you,” and then he went through the garden 
and underneath the honeysuckle and into 
the kirk, where every Free Kirker in Drum- 
tochty that could get out of bed, and half 
the Established Kirk, were waiting in expec- 
tation. 

I sat with his aunt in the minister’s pew, 
and shall always be glad that I was at that 
service. When winter lies heavy upon the 
Glen I go upon my travels, and in my time 
have seen many religious functions. I have 
been in Mr. Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, where 
the people wept one minute and laughed the 
next; have heard Liddon in St. Paul’s, and 
the sound of that high, clear voice is still 
with me, “ Awake, awake, put on thy 
strength, O Zion;” have seen High Mass in 
St. Peter’s, and stood in the dusk of the 
Duomo at Florence w T hen Padre Agostino 
thundered against the evils of the day. 
But I never realized the unseen world as 
I did that day in the Free Kirk of Drum- 
tochty. 

It is impossible to analyze a spiritual 
effect, because it is largely an atmosphere, 
but certain circumstances assisted. One was 
instantly prepossessed in favor of the young 
minister v T lio gave out the second Para- 
phrase at his first service, for it declared his 
filial reverence and w r on for him the blessing 
of a cloud of witnesses. No Scottish man 
can ever sing 


“ God of our fathers, be the God 
Of their succeeding race,” 

with a dry heart. It satisfied me at once 
that the minister w T as of a fine temper wiien, 
after a brave attempt to join, he hid his face 
and w r as silent. We thought none the w T orse 
of him that he was nervous, and two or 
three old people who had suspected self- 
sufficiency, took him to their hearts w T hen 
the minister concluded the Lord’s Prayer 
hurriedly, having omitted two petitions. 
But w r e knew it was not nervousness w r hich 
made him pause for ten seconds after pray- 
ing for widows and orphans, and in the 
silence which fell upon us the Divine Spirit 
had free access. His youth commended 
him, since he w r as also modest, for every 
mother had come with an inarticulate 
prayer that the “ puir laddie w T ould do w r eel 
on his first day, and him only twenty-four.” 
Texts I can never remember, nor, for that 
matter, the w r ords of sermons; but the subject 
was Jesus Christ, and before he had spoken 
five minutes I w T as convinced that Christ 
w r as present. The preacher faded from be- 
fore one’s eyes, and there arose the figure 
of the Nazarene, best lover of every human 
soul, stretching out his pierced hands to old 
folk and little children as he did, before his 
death, in Galilee. His voice might be heard 
any moment, as I have imagined it in my 
lonely hours by the winter fire or on the 
solitary hills — soft, low’ and sweet, pene- 
trating like music to the secret of the 
heart, “ Come unto me . . . and I will 
give you rest.” 

During a pause in the sermon I glanced 
up the church, and saw the same spell held 
the people. Donald Menzies had long ago 
been caught into the third heaven, and was 
now hearing words which it is not lawful to 
utter. Campbell, in his watch-tower at the 
back, had closed his eyes, and was praying. 
The women were w r eeping quietly, and the 
rugged faces of our men were subdued and 
softened, as wiien the evening sun plays on 
tne granite stone. 


31 


THE TEA NS FORM A T10N 

But what will stand out forever before my 
mind was the sight of Marget Howe. Her 
face was as white as death, and her won- 
derful gray eyes were shining through a 
mist of tears, so that I caught the light in 
the manse pew. She was thinking of 
George, and had taken the minister to her 
heart. 

The elders, one by one, gripped the min- 
ister’s hand in the vestry, and, though plain, 
homely men, they were the godliest in the 
Glen; but no man spake save Burnbrae. 

“ I lost one fairm for the Free Kirk, and 
I would have lost ten to be in the kirk this 
day.” 

Donald walked with me homewards, but 
would only say: 

“ There was a man sent from God whose 
name was John.” At the cottage he added, 
“ The friend of the bridegroom rejoiced 
greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.” 

Beneath the honeysuckle at his garden 
gate a woman was waiting. 


OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 

“ My name is Marget Howe, and I’m the 
wife of William Howe of Wliinnie Ivnowe. 
My only son was preparin’ for the ministry, 
but God wanted him nearly a year ago. 
When ye preached the Evangel o’ Jesus the 
day I heard his voice, and I loved you. Ye 
have no mither on earth, I hear, and I have 
no son, and I want to say that if ye ever 
wish to speak to ony woman as ye would to 
your mither, come to Whinnie Knowe, and 
I’ll count it one of the Lord’s consolations.” 

His aunt could only meet him in the study, 
and when he looked on her his lip quivered, 
for his heart was wrung with one wistful 
regret. 

“ Oh, auntie, if she had only been spared 
to see this day, and her prayers answered!” 

But his aunt flung her arms around his 
neck. 

“ Do not be cast doon, laddie, nor be unbe- 
lievin’. Your mither has heard every word, 
and is satisfied, for ye did it in remembrance 
o’ her, and yon was your mither’s sermon.” 


The Transformation of Lachlan Campbell 


A GRAND INQUISITOR. 

HE Free Kirk of Drum- 
tochty had no gallery, 
but a section of seats at 
the back was raised two 
feet, and any one in the 
first pew might be said 
to sit in the “ front o’ the 
gallery.” When Lach- 
lan Campbell arrived 
from the privileged parish of Auchindarroch, 
he examined the lie of country with the eye 
of a strategist, and seized at once a corner 
seat on the crest of the hill. From this 
vantage ground, with his back to the wall, 
and a clear space left between himself and 
his daughter Flora, he had an easy com- 
mand of the pulpit, and within six months 


had been constituted a court of review 
neither minister nor people could lightly 
disregard. It was not that Lachlan spoke 
hastily or at length, for his policy was gen- 
erally a silence pregnant with judgment, 
and his deliverances were for the most part 
in parables, none the less awful because hard 
of interpretation. Like every true Celt, he had 
the power of reserve, and knew the value of 
mystery. His voice must not be heard in' 
irresponsible gossip at the kirk door, and 
he never condescended to the level of Mrs. 
MacFadyen, our recognized sermon taster, 
who criticised everything in the technique 
of the pulpit, from the number of heads in 
a sermon to the air with which a proba- 
tioner used his pocket-handkerchief. She 
lived in the eye of the public, and gave her 
opinions with the light heart of a newspaper 



32 BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 

writer; but Lachlan kept himself in the mon with “ Lord Ullin’s Daughter,” the at- 


shadow and wore a manner of studied hu- 
mility as became the administrator of the 
Holy Office in Drumtochty, 

Lachlan was a little man, with a spare, 
wiry body, iron gray hair, and whiskers 
carefully arranged, a keen, old-fashioned 
face, sharpened by much spiritual thinking, 
and eyes that looked at you from beneath 
shaggy eyebrows as from some other world. 
His face had an irresistible suggestion of a 
Skye terrier, the most serious of animals, 
with the hair reduced, and Drumsheugh 
carried us all with him when, in a moment 
of inspiration, he declared that “ the body 
looks as if he had just come oot o’ the Ark.” 
He was a shepherd to trade, and very faith- 
ful in all his work, but his life business was 
theology, from Supralapsarianism in Elec- 
tion to the marks of faith in a believer’s 
heart. His library consisted of some fifty 
volumes of ancient divinity, and lay on an 
old oak chest close to his hand, where he sat 
beside the fire of a winter night. When the 
sheep were safe, and his day’s labor was 
over, he read by the light of the fire and the 
“ crusie ” (oil lamp) overhead, Witrius on 
the Covenants, or Rutherford’s “ Christ 
Dying,” or Runyan’s “ Grace Abounding,” or 
Owen’s “ 130th Psalm,” while the collies 
slept at his feet, and Flora put the finishing 
stroke on some bit of rustic finery. Worship 
was always colored by the evening’s read- 
ing, but the. old man never forgot to pray 
that they both might have a place in the 
everlasting covenant, and that the back- 
slidings of Scotland might be healed. 

As our inquisitor, Lachlan searched 
anxiously for sound doctrine and deep ex- 
perience, but he was not concerned about 
learning, and fluency he regarded with dis- 
gust. When a young minister from Muir- 
town stamped twice in his prayer at the 
Drumtochty Fast, and preached with great 
eloquence from the words, “ And there was 
no more sea,” repeating the text at the end 
of each paragraph, and concluding the ser- 


mosphere round Lachlan became electric, 
and no one dared to speak to him outside. 
He never expressed his mind on this melan- 
choly exhibition, but the following Sabbath 
he explained the principle on which they 
elected ministers at Auchindarroch, which 
w r as his standard of perfection. 

“ Six young men came, and they did not 
sing songs in the pulpit. Oh, no, they 
preached very well, and I said to Angus 
Bain, ‘ They are all goot lads, and there iss 
nothing wrong with their doctrine.’ 

“ Angus wass one of the ‘ Men,’ and saw 
what wass hidden from me, and he will be 
saying, ‘ Oh, yes, they said their lesson very 
pretty, but I did not see them tremble, 
Lachlan Campbell. Another iss coming, and 
seven iss a goot number.’ 

“ It wass next Sabbath that he came, and 
he wass a white man, giving out his text, 

‘ Blessed are they which are called unto the 
marriage supper of the Lamb,’ and I wass 
thinking that the Lord had laid too great a 
burden on the lad, and that he could not be 
fit for such work. It wass not more than 
ten minutes before he will be trying to tell 
us what he wass seeing, and will not have 
the words. He had to go down from the 
pulpit as a man that had been in the heav- 
enly places and wass stricken dumb. 

“ ‘ It iss the Lord that has put me to 
shame this day,’ he said to the elders, ‘ and 
I will never show my face again in Auchin- 
darroch, for I ought not to have meddled 
with things too high for me.’ 

“ ‘ You will show your face here every 
Sabbath,’ answered Angus Bain, * for the 
Lord said unto me, “ Wait for the man that 
trembles at the Word, and iss not able to 
speak, and it will be a sign unto you,” ’ 
and a very goot minister he wass, and made 
the hypocrites in Zion to be afraid.” 

Lachlan dealt tenderly with our young 
Free Kirk minister, for the sake of his first 
day, and passed over some very shallow ex- 
perience without remark, but an autumn 


THE TRANSFORMATION 

Sermon roused him to a sense of duty. For 
some days a storm of wind and rain had 
been stripping the leaves from the trees and 
gathering them in sodden heaps upon the 
ground. The minister looked out on the 
garden where many holy thoughts had 
visited him, and his heart sank like lead, 
for it was desolate, and of all its beauty 
there remained but one rose clinging to its 
stalk, drenched and faded. It seemed as if 
youth, with its flower of prom- 
ise and hope, had been beaten 
down, and a sense of loneliness 
fell on his soul. He had no 
heart for work, and crept to 
bed broken and dispirited. 

During the night the rain 
ceased, and the north wind 
began to blow, which cleanses 
nature in every pore, and 
braces each true man for his 
battle. The morrow w T as one 
of those glorious days which 
herald winter, and as the min- 
ister tramped along the road, 
where the dry leaves crackled 
beneath his feet, and climbed 
to the moor with head on high, 
the despair of yesterday van- 
ished. The wind had ceased, 
and the Glen lay at his feet, 
distinct, in the cold, clear air, 
from the dark mass of pines 
that closed its upper end to 
the swelling woods of oak and 
beech that cut it off from Strathmore. He 
had received a warm welcome from all kinds 
of people, and now he marked with human 
sympathy each little homestead with its belt 
of firs against the winter’s storms, and its 
stack-yard where the corn had been gathered 
safe; the plowman and his horses cutting 
brown ribbons in the bare stubble; dark 
squares where the potato stalks have with- 
ered to the ground, and women are raising 
the roots, and here and there a few cattle 
still out in the fields. His eye fell on the 


OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 33 

great wood through which he had rambled 
in August, now one blaze of color, rich green 
and light yellow, with patches of fiery red 
and dark purple. God seemed to have given 
him a sermon, and he wrote that evening, 
like one inspired, on the same parable of 
nature Jesus loved, with its subtle interpre- 
tation of our sorrows, joys, trust and hope. 
People told me that it was a “ bonnie ser- 
mon,” and that Netherton had forgotten his 


after-sermon snuff, although it was his turn 
to pass the box to Burnbrae. 

The minister returned to his study in a 
fine glow of body and soul, to find a severe 
figure standing motionless in the middle of 
the room. 

“ Wass that what you call a sermon?” said 
Lachlan Campbell, without other greeting. 

John Carmichael was still so full of joy 
that he did not catch the tone, and ex- 
plained with college pedantry that it was 
hardly a sermon, nor yet a lecture. 



He had an easy command of the pulpit.— See page 31. 


34 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIEB BUSH. 


“ You may call it a meditation.” 

“ I will be calling it an essay, without one 
bite of grass for starving sheep.” 

Then the minister awoke from a pleasant 
dream, as if one had flung cold water on 
his naked body. 

“ What was wrong?” with an anxious look 
at the stern little man, who of a sudden had 
become his judge. 

“ There wass nothing right, for I am not 
thinking that trees and leaves and stubble 
fields will save our souls, and I did not hear 
about sin and repentance and the work of 
Christ. It iss sound doctrine that we need, 
and a great peety you are not giving it.” 

The minister had been made much of in 
college circles, and had a fair idea of him- 
self. He was a kindly lad, but he did not 
see why he should be lectured by an old 
Highlandman who read nothing except 
Puritans, and was blind with prejudice. 
When they parted that Sabbath afternoon 
it was the younger man that had lost his 
temper, and the other did not offer to shake 
hands. 

Perhaps the minister would have under- 
stood Lachlan better if he had known that 
the old man could not touch food when he 
got home, and spent the evening in a fir- 
wood praying for the lad he had begun to 
love. And Lachlan would have had a 
lighter heart if he had heard the minister 
questioning himself whether he had denied 
the Evangel or sinned against one of 
Christ’s disciples. They argued together; 
they prayed apart. 

Lachlan was careful to say nothing, but 
the congregation felt that his hand w r as 
against the minister, and Burnbrae took 
him to task. 

“ Ye mustn’t be too hard on him, Maister 
Campbell, for he’s but young, and cornin’ 
on fine. He has a hearty word for every- 
body on the road, and the sight o’ his fresh 
young face in the pulpit is a sermon itself.” 

You are wrong, Burnbrae, if you will be 
thinking that my heart iss not warm to the 


minister, for it went out unto him from the 
day he preached his first sermon. Bur the 
Lord regardeth not the countenance of 
man.” 

“ No doubt, no doubt; but I cannot see 
anything wrong in his doctrine; it would not 
be reasonable to expect old-fashioned ser- 
mons from a young man, and I would count 
them barely honest. I’m no denyin’ that he 
goes far afield, and takes us to strange lands 
when he’s on his travels; but ye’ll acknowl- 
edge that he gathers mony treasures, and he 
aye comes back to Christ.” 

“ No, I will not be saying that John Car- 
michael does not love Christ, for I have seen 
the Lord in his sermons like a face through 
a lattice. Oh, yes, and I have felt the fra- 
grance of the myrrh. But I am not liking 
his doctrine, and I wass thinking that some 
day there will be no original sin left in the 
parish of Drumtochty.” 

It was about this time that the minister 
made a great mistake, although he was try- 
ing to do his best for the people. He used 
to come over to the cottage for a ramble 
through my books, and one evening he told 
me that he had prepared what he called a 
“ course ” on Biblical criticism, and was 
going to place Drumtochty on a level with 
Germany. It was certainly a strange part 
for me to advise a minister, but I had grown 
to like the lad because he was full of en- 
thusiasm, and too honest for this world, 
and I implored him to be cautious. 
Drumtochty was not anxious to be enlight- 
ened about the authors of the Pentateuch, 
being quite satisfied with Moses, and it was 
possible that certain good men in Drum- 
tochty might resent any interference with 
their hereditary notions. Why could he not 
read this subject for his own pleasure, and 
teach it quietly in classes? Why give him- 
self away in the pulpit? This worldly 
counsel brought the minister to a white heat, 
and he rose to his feet. Had he not been 
ordained to feed his people with truth, and 
was he not bound to tell them all he knew? 


THE TEA NS FORM A T10N 

We were living in an age of transition, and 
he must prepare Christ’s folk that they be 
not taken unawares. If he failed in his duty 
through any fear of consequences, men 
would arise afterwards to condemn him for- 
cowardice, and lay their unbelief at his 
door. When he ceased I was ashamed of 
my cynical advice, and resolved never again 
to interfere with “ courses ” or other matters 
above the lay mind. But greater knowl- 
edge of the world had made me a wise 
prophet. 

Within a month the Free Kirk was in an 
uproar, and when I dropped in one Sabbath 
morning the situation seemed to me a very 
pathetic tragedy. The minister was offering 
to the honest country folk a mass of imma- 
ture and undigested details about the Bible, 
and they were listening with wearied, per- 
plexed faces. Lachlan Campbell sat grim 
and watchful, without a sign of flinching, 
but even from the manse pew I could detect 
the suffering of his heart. When the min- 
ister blazed into polemic against the bigotry 
of the old school, the iron face quivered as 
if a father had been struck by his son. 
Carmichael looked thin and nervous in the 
pulpit, and it came to me that if new views 
are to be preached to old-fashioned people 
it ought not to be by lads who are always 
heady and intolerant, but by a stout man of 
middle age, with a rich voice and a good- 
natured manner. Had Carmichael rasped 
and girded much longer one would have be- 
lieved in the inspiration of the vowel points, 
and I left the church with a low heart, for 
this was a woeful change from his first 
sermon. 

Lachlan would not be pacified, not even 
by the plea of the minister’s health. 

“ Oh, yes, I am seeing that he iss ill, and 
I will be as sorry as any man in Druin- 
tochty. But it iss not too much work, as 
they are saying; it iss the judgment of God. 
It iss not goot to meddle with Moses, and 
John Carmichael will be knowing that. His 
own sister wass not respectful to Moses, 


OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 35 

and she will not be feeling very well next 
day.'’ 

But Burnbrae added that “ the old man 
could not be more cast doon if he had lost 
his daughter.” 

The peace of the Free Kirk had been 
broken, and the minister was eating out his 
heart, when he remembered the invitation 
of Marget Howe, and went one sweet spring 
day to Whinnie Knowe. 

Marget met him with her quiet welcome 
at the garden gate. 

“ Ye have done me a great kindness in 
cornin’, Maister Carmichael, and if ye please 
we ’ill sit in this sunny corner which is 
dear to me, and ye ’ill tell me your troubles.” 

So they sat down together beside the brier 
bush, and after one glance at Marget’s face 
the minister opened his heart, and told her 
the great controversy with Lachlan. 

Marget lifted her head as one who had 
heard of some brave deed, and there was a 
ring in her voice. 

“ It makes me proud before God that there 
are two men in Drumtochty who follow 
their conscience as king, and count truth 
dearer than their own friends. It is pitifu’ 
when God’s bairns fight through greed and 
envy, but it is heartsome when they are 
willin’ to wrestle aboot the Evangel, for 
surely the end o’t must be peace. I’ve often 
thought that in the old days both the man 
on the rack, and the inquisitor himself, 
might be good men and accepted o’ God, 
and maybe the inquisitor suffered more than 
the martyr. I’m thinkin’, Maister Car- 
michael, that it’s been hardest on Lachlan.” 

The minister’s head was buried in his 
hands, but his heart was with Marget. 

“ It’s a strange book, the Bible, and no the 
book we would have made, to judge by oor 
bit creeds and confessions. It’s like the 
head of oats in the harvest time. There’s 
the ear that holds the grain and keeps it 
safe, and that’s the history; and there’s 
often not much nutriment in it; then there’s 
the corn lying in the ear, which is the Evan- 


36 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIEB BUSH. 


gel from Eden to Revelation, and that is the 
bread o’ the soul. But they must be threshed 
first and the chaff cleaned off. It’s a bonnie 
sight to see pure grain failin’ like a run- 
nin’ brook on the corn-room floor, and a glint 
o’ the sun through the window turnin’ it 
into gold. But the dust o’ the chaff-room is 
more than anybody can abide, and the 
chaff’s worth nothin’ when the corn’s awa’.” 

“ Ye mean,” said the minister, “ that my 
study is the threshing mill, and that some of 
the chaff has got into the pulpit.” 

‘‘Ye’re no offended?” and Marget’s voice 
trembled. 

Then the minister lifted his head and 
laughed aloud with joy, wdiile a swift flash 
of humor lit up Marget’s face. 

“ You have been the voice of God to me 
this day, Mrs. Howe, but if I give up my 
‘ course,’ the people will misunderstand, for 
I know everything I gave was true, and I 
would give it all again if it were expe- 
dient.” 

“No fear, Maister Carmichael; nobody 
misunderstands that loves, and the folk all 
love ye, and the man that holds ye dearest 
is Lachlan Campbell. I saw the look in his 
eye that cannot be mistaken.” 

“ I’ll go to him this very day,” and the 
minister leaped to his feet. 

“ Ye’ll no regret it,” said Marget, “ for God 
will give ye peace.” 

Lachlan did not see the minister coming, 
for he was busy with a lamb that had lost 
its way and hurt itself. Carmichael marked 
with a growing tenderness at his hegrt how 
gently the old man washed and bound up 
the wounded leg, all the time crooning to the 
frightened creature in the sweet Gaelic 
speech, and also how he must needs give the 
lamb a drink of warm milk before he set it 
free. 

When he rose from his work of mercy he 
faced the minister. 

For an instant Lachlan hesitated, and then 
at the look on Carmichael’s face, he held 
out both his hands. 


“ This iss a goot day for me, and I bid you 
ten thousand welcomes.” 

But the minister took the first word. 

“ You and I, Lachlan, have not seen eye to 
eye about some things lately, and I am not 
here to argue which is nearer the truth. But 
once I spoke rudely to you, and often I have 
spoken unwisely in my sermons. You are 
an old man, and 1 am a young, and I 
ask you to forgive me and to pray that 
both of us may be kept near the heart of 
our , Lord, whom w T e love, and w T ho loves 
us.” 

No man can be so courteous as a Celt, and 
Lachlan was of the pure Highland breed, 
kindest of friends, fiercest of foes. 

“ You have done a beautiful deed this day, 
Maister Carmichael, and the grace of God 
must have been exceeding abundant in your 
heart. It iss this man that asks your for- 
giveness, for I wass full of pride, and did 
not speak to you as an old man should; but 
God iss my witness that I would have 
plucked out my right eye for your sake. 
You will say every word God gives you, 
and I will take as much as God gives me, 
and there will be a covenant between us as 
long as we live.” 

They knelt together on the earthen floor 
of that Highland cottage, the old school and 
the new, before one Lord, and the only dif- 
ference in their prayers was that the young 
man prayed they might keep the faith once 
delivered unto the saints, while the burden 
of the old man’s prayer was that they might 
be led into all truth. 

Lachlan’s portion that evening ought to 
have been the slaying of Sisera, from the 
Book of Judges, but instead he read, to 
Flora’s amazement — it was the night before 
she left her home — the thirteenth chapter 
of 1st Corinthians, and twice he repeated 
to himself, “ Now we see through a glass 
darkly, but then face to face.” 



37 


THE TRANSFORMATION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 
HIS BITTER SHAME. 


HE Free Kirk people were 
very proud of their ves- 
try because the Estab- 
lished Church had none, 
and because it was rea- 
sonably supposed to be 
the smallest in Scotland. 
When the minister, who 
touched five feet eleven, 
and the beadle, who was 
three inches taller, as- 
sembled for the procession, with the pre- 
centor, a man of fair proportions, there 
was no waste ground in that room, and 
any messenger from the church door 
had to be selected with judgment. “ Step 
up, Airchie man, to the vestry,” Burnbrae 
would say to the one undersized man in 
Drumtochty, “ and tell the minister no to 
forget the Jews. Ye can push in fine, but it 
would beat me to get by the door. It’s a 
bonnie bit room, but three folk stannin’ 
makes it contracted for another man.” 

It was eight feet by eight, and consisted 
largely of two doors and a fire-place, and its 
chief glory was a portrait of Dr. Chalmers, 
-whose face, dimly seen in the light of the 
lamp, was a charter of authority, and raised 
the proceedings to the level of history. 
Lockers on either side of the mantel-piece 
contained the church library, which 
abounded in the lives of Scottish worthies. 
Where there was neither grate nor door, 
a narrow board ran along the wall, on which 
it was simply a point of honor to seat the 
twelve deacons, who met once a month to 
raise the Sustentation Fund by modest, 
heroic sacrifices of hard-working people, and 
to keep the slates on the church roof in win- 
ter. When they had nothing else to do, they 
talked about the stove which “ came out in 
’43,” and, when it was in good humor, would 
raise the temperature one degree above freez- 
ing. Seating the court was a work of art, 
and could only be achieved by the repression 


of the smaller men, who looked out from 
the loop-holes of retreat, the projection of 
bigger men on to their neighbor’s knees, and 
the absolute elimination of Archie Moncur, 
whose voice made motions on temperance 
from the lowest depths. Netherton was al- 
ways the twelfth man to arrive, and nothing 
could be done till he was safely settled. 
Only some six inches were reserved at the 
end of the bench, and he was a full sitter, 
but he had discovered a trick of sitting side- 
ways and screwing his leg against the oppo- 
site wall, that secured the court as well as 
himself in their places on the principle of a 
compressed spring. When this operation was 
completed, Burnbrae used to say to the 
minister, who sat in the middle, on a cane 
chair before the tiniest of tables — the living 
was small, and the ministers never grew fat 
till they left: 

“ We’re fine and comfortable noo, Mod- 
erator, and ye can begin business as soon as 
ye like.” 

As there were only six elders, they could 
sit in state, besides leaving a vacant space 
for any penitents who came to confess their 
sins and receive absolution, or some cate- 
chumen who wished to be admitted to the 
sacrament. Carmichael used to say that a 
meeting of Session affected his imagination, 
and would have made an interior for Rem- 
brandt. On one side of the table sat 
the men who represented the piety of the 
district and were supposed to be “ far ben ” 
in the Divine fellowship, and on the other 
side some young girl in her loneliness, who 
wrung her handkerchief in terror of this 
dreaded spiritual court, and hoped within 
her heart that no elder would ask her 
“effectual calling” from the Shorter Cate- 
chism; while the little lamp, hanging from 
the ceiling and swinging gently in the wind 
that had free access, cast a fitful light on 
the fresh, tearful face of the girl, and the 
hard, weather-beaten countenances of the 
elders, composed into a serious gravity not 
untouched by tenderness. They were little 



38 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH 


else than laboring men, but no one was 
elected to that court unless he had given 
pledges of godliness, and they bore them- 
selves as men who had the charge of souls. 

The little Sanhedrim had within it the 
school of Hillel, which was swayed by 
mercy, and its Rabbi was Burnbrae; and the 
school of Shammai, whose rule was in- 
flexible justice, and its Rabbi was Lachlan 
Campbell. Burnbrae was a big - hearted 
man, with a fatherly manner, and had a 
genius for dealing with “young communi- 
cants.” 

“ Weel, Jessie, we’re awfu’ pleased to 
think ye’re goin’ forward, and the Dominie 
was tellin’ me just last week that ye did 
your work at school grand, and know your 
Bible from end to end. It’ll be no easy to 
ask the like o’ you questions, but ye mind 
Abraham, Jessie.” • 

“ Ou ay,” and Jessie is all alert, although 
she is afraid to look up. 

“What was the name o’ his wife, noo?” 

“ Sarah, and their son was Isaac.” 

“ That’s right; and what aboot Isaac’s 
wife?” 

“ Isaac married Rebekah, and they had two 
sons, Jacob and Esau,” and the girl takes 
a shy glance at the honest elder, and begins 
to feel at home. 

“ Domsie wasn’t far wrong, I see, but it’s 
no possible ye could tell us the names o’ 
Jacob’s sons; it’s maybe no fair to ask such 
a tough question,” knowing all the while 
that this was a test case of Domsie’s. 

When Jessie reached Benjamin. Burnbrae 
could not contain himself. 

“ It’s no use tryin’ to stick Jessie wi’ the 
Bible, neighbors; we ’ill see what she can 
do wi’ the Catechism. Ye’re no the lassie 
that said the questions from beginnin’ to end 
wi’ two mistakes, are ye?” 

Yes, she was, and dared him to come on, 
for Jessie has forgotten the minister and all 
the Session. 

“ The elders would like to hear ‘ What is 
the Lord’s Supper?’ ” 


“ That’s it; and Jessie, my woman, give us 
the ‘ w’orthy receiving.’ ” 

Jessie achieves another triumph, and is 
now ready for anything. 

“ Ye have the Word weel stored in your 
mind, lassie, and ye must keep it in your 
life, and do not forget that Christ is a good 
Maister.” 

“ I’ll do my best,” and Jessie declared that 
Burnbrae had been as kind as if she had 
been his own bairn, and that she “ wasn’t 
feared at all.” 

But her trial is not over; the worst is to 
come. 

Lachlan began where Burnbrae ended, 
and very soon had Jessie on the rack. 

“ How old will you be?” 

“ Eighteen next Martinmas.” 

“ And why will you be coming to the sac- 
rament?” 

“ My mither thought it was time,” with a 
threatening of tears as she looked at the 
face in the corner. 

“ Ye will maybe tell the Session what hass 
been your ‘ lawwork ’ and how long ye have 
been at Sinai.” 

“ I don’t know what ye’re askin’. I was 
never oot o’ Drumtochty,” and Jessie breaks 
down utterly. 

“ I do not think, Moderator, we ought to 
ask such questions,” broke in Burnbrae, 
who could not see a little one put to con- 
fusion; “an’ I cannot mind them in the 
Gospels. There’s one commandment Jessie 
keeps weel, as I can testeefy, and that’s the 
fifth, for there’s no a better daughter in 
Drumtochty. I move, Moderator, she get 
her token; don’t cry, poor woman, for ye’ve 
done weel, and the Session’s rael satisfied.” 

“ It wass Dr. John’s mark I wass trying 
the girl by,” explained Lachlan, after Jessie 
had gone away comforted. “ And it iss a 
goot mark, oh, yes, and very searching. 

“ You will maybe not know what it iss, 
Moderator,” and Lachlan regarded the min- 
ister with austere superiority, for it was the 
winter of the feud. 


THE TEA NSFORMA TION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 


39 


No, he did not, nor any of the Session, 
being all sober Scotchmen, except Donald 
Menzies, who was at home. 

“It iss broken bones, and Dr. John did 
preach three hours upon it at Auchindar- 
rocli Fast, and there wass not many went to 
the sacrament on that occasion. 

“ Broken bones iss a fine mark to begin 
with, and the next will be doubts. But there 
iss a deeper,” continued Lachlan, warming 
to his subject, “ oh, yes, far deeper, and I 
heard of it when I wass North for the 
sheep, and I will not be forgetting that day 
with Janet Macfarlane. 

“ I knew she wass a professor, and I wass 
looking for her marks, but it wass not for 
me to have been searching her; it wass that 
woman that should have been trying me.” 

A profound silence wrapt the Session. 

“ ‘ Janet,’ I said, ‘ have ye had many 
doubts?’ 

“ ‘ Doubts, Lachlan? Wass that what you 
asked? I have had desertions, and one will 
be for six months.’ 

“ So I saw she wass far beyond me, for I 
dare not be speaking about desertions.” 

Two minutes after the minister pro- 
nounced the benediction, and no one had 
offered any remark in the interval. 

It seemed to the elders that Lachlan dealt 
hardly with young people and those who had 
gone astray, but they learned one evening 
that his justice had at least no partiality. 
Burnbrae said afterwards that Lachlan 
“ looked like a ghost cornin’ in at the door,” 
but he sat in silence in the shadow, and no 
one marked the agony on his face till the 
end. 

“ if that iss all the business, Moderator, 
I have to bring a case of discipline before 
the Session, and ask them to do their duty. 
It iss known to me that a young woman 
who hass been a member of this church hass 
left her home and gone into the far country. 
There will be no use in summoning her to 
appear before the Session, for she will never 
be seen again in this parish. I move that she 


be cut off from the roll, and her name iss” 

— and Lachlan’s voice broke, but in an in- 
stant he recovered himself — “ her name iss 
Flora Campbell.” 

Carmichael confessed to me that he was 
stricken dumb, and that Lachlan’s ashy 
face held him with an awful fascination. 

It was Burnbrae that first found a voice, 
and showed that night the fine delicacy of 
heart that may be hidden behind a plain 
exterior. 

“ Moderator, this is a terrible calamity 
that has befallen oor brither, and I’m feelin’ 
as if I had lost a bairn o’ my own, for a 
sweeter lassie did not cross oor kirk door. 
None o’ us want to know what has hap- 
pened, or where she has gone, and no a word 
o’ this will cross oor lips. Her faither’s 
done more than could be expected o’ mortal 
man, and now we have oor duty. It’s no 
the way o’ this Session to cut off any mem- 
ber o’ the flock at a stroke, and we’ll no 
begin with Flora Campbell. I move, Mod- 
erator, that her case be left to her faither 
and yerself, and oor neighbor may depend 
on it that Flora’s name and his own will be 
mentioned in oor prayers every mornin’ and 
night till the good Shepherd o’ the sheep 
brings her home.” 

Burnbrae paused, and then, with tears in 
his voice — men do not weep in Drumtochty 

— “ With the Lord there is mercy, and with 
him is plenteous redemption.” 

The minister took the old man’s arm and 
led him into the manse, and set him in the 
big chair by the study fire. “ Thank God, 
Lachlan, we are friends now; tell me about 
it as if I were your son and Flora’s brother.” 

The father took a letter out of an inner 
pocket with a trembling hand, and this is 
what Carmichael read by the light of the 
lamp: 

“ Dear Father: — When this reaches you I 
will be in London, and not worthy to cross 
your door. Do not be always angry with me, 
and try to forgive me, for you will not be 
troubled any more by my dancing or dressing. 
Do not think that I will be blaming you, for 


40 


BESIDE THE BOHN IE BRIER BUSH. 


you have been a good father to me, and said 
what you would be considering right, but it is 
not easy for a man to understand a girl. Oh, if 
I had had my mother, then she would have 
understood me, and I would not have crossed 
you! Forget poor Flora’s foolishness, but you 
will not forget her, and maybe you will still 
pray for me. Take care of the geraniums for 
my sake, and give the lamb her milk that you 
called after me. I will never see you again, in 
this world or the next, nor my mother . . . 
(here the letter was much blotted). When I 
think that there will be no one to look after 
you, and have the fire burning for you on 
winter nights, I will be rising to come back. 
But it is too late, too late! Oh, the disgrace I 
will be bringing on you in the Glen! Your un- 
worthy daughter, Flora Campbell.” 

“ This is a fiery trial, Lachlan, and I can- 
not even imagine what you are suffering. 
But do not despair, for that is not the letter 
of a bad girl. Perhaps she was impatient, 
and has been led astray. But Flora is good 
at heart, and you must not think she is gone 
forever.” 

Lachlan groaned, the first moan he had 
made, and then he tottered to his feet. 

“ You are very kind, Maister Carmichael, 
and so wass Burnbrae, and I will be thank- 
ful to you all, but you do not understand. 
Oh, no, you do not understand.” Lachlan 
caught hold of a chair and looked the min- 
ister in the face. 

“ She hass gone, and there will be no com- 
ing back. You would not take her name 
from the roll of the church, and 1 will not be 
meddling with that book. But I have blotted 
out her name from my Bible, where her 
mother’s name iss written and mine. She 
has w T rought confusion in Israel and in an 
elder’s house, and I ... I have no 
daughter. But I loved her; she never knew 
how I loved her, for her mother would be 
looking at me from her eyes.” 

The minister ^walked with Lachlan to the 
foot of the hill -on which his cottage stood, 
and after they had shaken hands in silence, 
he watched the old man’s figure in the cold 
moonlight till he disappeared in the for- 
saken home, where the fire had gone out on 
the hearth, and neither love nor hope was 
waiting for a broken heart. 


The raihvay did not think it worth while 
to come to Drumtochty, and we were cut 
off from the lowlands by miles of forests, 
so our manners retained the fashion of the 
former age. Six elders, besides the minis- 
ter, knew the tragedy of Flora Campbell, 
and never opened their lips. Mrs. Macfad- 
yen, w r ho was our newspaper, and under- 
stood her duty, refused to pry into this 
secret. The pity of the Glen went out to 
Lachlan, but no one even looked a question 
as he sat alone in his pew or came dow r n on 
a Saturday afternoon to the village shop for 
his week’s provisions. London friends 
thought me foolish about my adopted home, 
but I asked them whether they could find 
such perfect good manners in Belgravia, 
and they were silent. My Drumtochty 
neighbors would have played an awkward 
part in a drawing-room, but never have I 
seen in all my wanderings men and women 
of truer courtesy or tenderer heart. 

“ It makes my heart sore to see him,” Mrs. 
Macfadyen said to me one day, “ so bowed 
and dejected, him that w r as that tidy and 
firm. His hair’s turned white in a month, 
and he’s aw r ay to nothing in his clothes. 
But least said is soonest mended. It’s not 
right to interfere wi v anither’s sorrow r , and 
it w r ould be an awfu’ sin to miscall a young 
lassie. We must just hope that Flora ’ill 
soon come back, for if she doesn’t, Lachlan 
’ill no be long with us. He’s sayin’ nothin’, 
and all respect him for it; but onybody can 
see that his heart is breakin’.” 

We w r ere helpless till Marget Howe met 
Lachlan in the shop and read his sorrow at 
a glance. She w r ent home to Whinnie 
Ivnow r e in great distress. 

“ It w T as woeful to see the old man gath- 
erin’ his bit things wi’ a shakin’ hand, and 
speakin’ to me aboot the w T eather, and all 
the time his eyes were sayin’, ‘ Flora, 
Flora!’ ” 

“ Where do ye think the young hussy is, 
Marget?” 

“ Nobody needs to know, Weelum, an’ ye 


THE TEA NS FORMA T10N OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 


41 


must not speak that way, for whatever’s 
come over her, she’s dear to Lachlan and to 
God. It’s laid on me to visit Lachlan, for 
I’m thinking oor Father did not comfort us 
withoot expectin’ that we would comfort 
other folk.” 

When MaTget came round the corner of 
Lachlan’s cottage, she found Flora’s plants 
laid out in the sun, and her father watering 
them on his knees. One was ready to die, 
and for it he had made a shelter with his 
plaid. 

He was taken unawares, but in a minute 
he was leading Marget in with hospitable 
words. 

“ It iss kind of you to come to an old man’s 
house, Mistress Howe, and it iss a very 
warm day. You will not care for speerits, 
but I am very goot at making tea.” 

Marget was not as other women, and she 
spoke at once. 

“ Maister Campbell, ye will believe that I 
have come in the love of God, and because 
we have both been afflicted. I had one son, 
and he is gone; ye had one daughter, and 
she is gone. I know where George is, and 
am satisfied. I doubt sorely your sorrow is 
deeper than mine.” 

“ Would to God that she wass lying in the 
kirk-yard; but I will not speak of her. She 
iss not anything to me this day. See, I will 
show you what I have done, for she hass 
been a black shame to her name.” 

He opened the Bible, and there was 
Flora’s name scored with wavering strokes, 
but the ink had run as if it had been mingled 
with tears. 

Marget’s heart burned within her at the 
sight, and perhaps she could hardly make 
allowance for Lachlan’s blood and theology. 

“ This is what ye have done, and ye let a 
woman see your work! Ye are an old man, 
and in sore travail, but I tell ye before God 
ye have the greater shame. Just twenty 
years o’ age this spring and her mither dead. 
No woman to watch over her, and she wan- 
dered from the fold, and all ye can do is to 


take her oot o’ your Bible. Woe is me if oor 
Father had blotted oot oor names from the 
Book o’ Life when we left his house! But 
he sent his own Son to seek us, and a weary 
road he came. I tell ye, a man wouldn’t 
leave a sheep to perish as ye have cast off 
your own bairn! Ye’re worse than Simon 
the Pharisee, for Mary was no kin to him. 
Poor Flora, to have such a father!” 

“ Who will be telling you that I wass a 
Pharisee?” cried Lachlan, quivering in every 
limb and grasping Marget’s arm. 

“ Forgive me, Lachlan, forgive me. It was 
the thought o’ the misguided lassie carried 
me, for I didna come to upbraid ye.” 

But Lachlan had sunk into a chair and had 
forgotten her. 

“ She hass the word, and God will have 
smitten the pride of my heart, for it iss 
Simon that I am. I wass hard on my child, 
and I wass hard on the minister, and there 
wass none like me. The Lord has laid my 
name in the dust, and I will be angry with 
her. But she iss the scapegoat for my sins, 
and hass gone into the desert. God be 
merciful to me a sinner.” And then Marget 
understood no more, for the rest was in 
Gaelic, but she heard Flora’s name, with 
another she took to be her mother’s, twined 
together. 

So Marget knew it would be well with 
Lachlan yet, and she wrote this letter: 

“My Dear Lassie: — Ye know that I was aye 
your friend, and I am writing to say that your 
father loves ye more than ever, and is wearing 
out his heart for the sight o’ your face. Come 
back, or he’ll die through want o’ his bairn. 
The Glen is bright and bonny now, for the pur- 
ple heather is on the hills, and down below the 
golden corn, with bluebell and poppy flowers be- 
tween. Nobody ’ill ask ye where ye’ve been or 
anything else; there’s not a bairn in the place 
that’s not wearying to see ye; and, Flora, 
lassie, if there will be such gladness in our 
wee Glen when ye come home, what think ye 
o’ the joy in the Father’s house? Start the 
very minute that ye get this letter; your father 
bids ye come, and I’m writing this in place o’ 
your mother. Marget Howe.” 

Marget went out to tend the flowers while 
Lachlan read the letter, and when he gave 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BB1ER BUSH . 


42 

it back the address was written in his own 
hand. 

He went as far as the top of the hill with 
Marget, and watched her on the way to the 
post-office till she was only a speck on the 
road. 

When he entered his cottage the shadows 
were beginning to fall, and he remembered 
it would soon be night. 

“ It iss in the dark that Flora will be 
coming, and she must know that her father 
iss waiting for her.” 

He cleaned and trimmed with anxious 
hand a lamp that was kept for show and 
had never been used. Then he selected 
from his books Edwards’ “ Sinners in the 
Hands of an Angry God,” and “ Coles on the 
Divine Sovereignty,” and on them he laid 
the large family Bible out of which Flora’s 
name had been blotted. This was the stand 
on which he set the lamp in the window, 
and every night till Flora returned its light 
shone down the steep path that ascended to 
her home, like the Divine Love from the 
open door of our Father’s house. 


LIKE AS A FATHER. 

was only by physical 
force and a free use of 
personalities that the Ivil- 
drummie passengers 
could be entrained at the 
Junction, and the Druin- 
tochty men were always 
the last to capitulate. 

They watched the main line train that had 
brought them from Muirtown disappear in 
the distance, and then broke into groups to 
discuss the cattle sale at leisure, while 
Peter, the factotum of the little Kildrum- 
mie branch, drove his way through their 
midst with offensive pieces of luggage, 
and abused them by name without respect 
of persons. 

“It’s most aggravatin’, Drumsheugh, that 


ye ’ill stand there grumblin’ at the prices, 
as if ye were a poor cotter body that had 
sold her one cow, and us twelve minutes 
late. Man, get into your carriage; he ’ill no 
be fat that buys from you, I’ll wager.” 

“ Peter’s in an awfu’ excitement the night, 
neighbors,” Drumsheugh would respond, 
after a long pause; “ye would think he was 
a mail guard to hear him speak. Mind ye, 
I’m no goin’ to shove behind if the engine 
sticks, for I have no time. He needs a bit 
takin’ doon,” and Drumsheugh settles him- 
self in his seat, “ or else there would be no 
livin’ wi’ him.” 

Peter escaped this winged shaft, for he 
had detected a woman in the remote dark- 
ness. 

“ Keep us all, woman! what are ye 
trampin’ aboot there for, oot o’ a body’s 
sight? I near set off withoot ye.” 

Then Peter recognized her face, and his 
manner softened of a sudden. 

“Come away, lassie, come away; I didn’t 
know ye at the moment, but I heard ye had 
been visitin’ in the south. The third is ter- 
rible full wi’ those Drumtochty lads, and 
ye ’ill hear nothing but Drumsheugh’s cattle; 
ye ’ill maybe be as handy in oor second.” 
And Flora Campbell stepped in unseen 

Between the Junction and Kildrummie 
Peter wandered along the foot-board, col- 
lecting tickets and identifying passengers. 
He was generally in fine trim on the way 
up, and took ample revenge for the insults 
of the departure. But it was supposed that 
Peter had taken Drumsheugh’s withering 
sarcasm to heart, for he attached himself to 
the second, and was invisible to the expect- 
ant third till the last moment. 

“ Ye’ve had a long journey, Miss Cammil, 
and ye must be nearly tired oot; just ye sit 
still till the folk get away, and the good wife 
'and me would be proud if ye took a cup o’ 
tea wi’ us afore ye started home. I’ll come 
for ye as soon as I get the van emptied and 
my little bits o’ business finished.” 

Peter hurried up to his cottage in such 



THE TEA NSFOBMA TION 

hot haste that his wife came out in great 
alarm. 

“ No, there’s nothing wrong; it’s the oppo- 
site way this night. Ye mind o’ Flora Cam- 
mil, that left her father, and none o’ the 
Drumtochty folk wmuld say onytking aboot 
her. Weel, she’s in the train, and I’ve asked 
her up to rest, and she was glad to come, 
poor thing. So give her a good welcome, 
woman, and the best in the house, for ours 
’ill be the first roof she ’ill be under on her 
way home.” 

Our women do not kiss one another like 
the city ladies; but the motherly grip of 
Mary Bruce’s hand sent a thrill to Flora’s 
heart. 

“ Noo, I call this real kind o’ ye, Miss 
Cammil, to come in withoot ceremony, and 
I’d be terrible pleased if ye would do it any 
time you’re travelin’. The rail is more than 
ordinar’ fatiguin’, and a cup o’ tea ’ill set ye 
up;” and Mary had Flora in the best chair 
and was loading her plate with homely 
dainties. 

Peter would speak of nothing but the new 
engine that was coming, and was to place 
the Ivildrummie branch beyond ridicule for- 
ever, and on this great event he continued 
without intermission till he parted with 
Flora on the edge of the pine woods that 
divided Drumtochty from Ivildrummie. 

“ Good-night to ye, Miss Cammil, and 
thank ye again for your visit. Bring the old 
man wi’ ye next time ye’re passin’, though 
I’m afraid ye’ve been deafened wi’ the 
engine.” 

Flora took Peter’s hand, that was callous 
and rough with the turning of brakes and 
the coupling of chains. 

“ It wass not your new engine you wass 
thinking about this night, Peter Bruce, but 
a poor girl that iss in trouble. I have not 
the words, but I will be remembering your 
house, oh, yes, as long as I live.” 

Twice Peter stood on his way home; the 
first time he slapped his leg and chuckled. 

“ It was right clever o’ me; a whole car- 


OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 43 

riage o’ Drumtochty lads, and not one o’ 
them ever had a glimpse o’ her.” 

At the second stoppage he drew his hand 
across his eyes. 

“ Poor lassie! I hope her father ’ill be 
kind to her, for she’s sore broken, and looks 
more like death than life.” 

No one can desire a sweeter walk than 
through a Scottish pine wood in late Sep- 
tember, where you breathe the healing, 
resinous air, and the ground is crisp and 
springy beneath your feet, and gentle ani- 
mals dart away on every side, and here and 
there you come on an open space with a 
pool, and a brake of gorse. Many a time on 
market days Flora had gone singing through 
these woods, plucking a posy of wild flowers 
and finding a mirror in every pool, as young 
girls will; but now she trembled and was 
afraid. The rustling of the trees in the 
darkness, the hooting of an owl, the awful 
purity of the moonlight in the glades, the 
cold sheen of the water, w T ere to her troubled 
conscience omens of judgment. Had it not 
been for the kindness of Peter Bruce, which 
was a pledge of human forgiveness, there 
would have been no heart in her to dare that 
wood, and it was with a sob of relief she 
escaped from the shadow and looked upon 
the old Glen once more, bathed from end to 
end in the light of the harvest moon. Be- 
neath her ran our little river, spanned by its 
quaint old bridge; away on the right the 
Parish Kirk peeped out from a clump of 
trees; half way up the Glen the clachan lay 
surrounded by patches of corn; and beyond 
were the moors, with a shepherd’s cot- 
tage that held her heart. Two hours 
ago squares of light told of warmth 
and welcome within; but now, as Flora 
passed one house after another, it seemed as 
if every one she knew was dead, and she 
was forgotten in her misery. Her heart 
grew cold, and she longed to lie down and 
die, when she caught the gleam of a lighted 
window. Some one was living still to know 
she had repented, and she knelt down among 


44 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIEB BUSK 


the flowers with her ear to the glass to hear 
the sound of a human voice. Archie Mon- 
cur had come home late from a far-away 
job, but he must needs have worship with 
his sister before they went to bed, and well 
did he choose the Psalm that night. Flora’s 
tears rained upon yie mignonette as the two 
old people sang: 

“ When Sion’s bondage God turned back, 

• As men that dreamed were we ; 

Then filled with laughter was our mouth, 
Our tongue with melody;” 

while the fragrance of the flowers went up 
as incense unto God. 

All the way along the Glen the last words 
of the Psalm still rang in her ears. “ Rejoic- 
ing shall return,” but as she touched the 
footpath to her home, courage failed her. 
Marget had written for her dead mother, 
but no one could speak for her father. If he 
refused her entrance, then it had been better 
for her to have died in London. A turn of 
the path brought her within sight of the cot- 
tage, and her heart came into her mouth, 
for the kitchen window was a blaze of light. 
A moment she feared Lachlan might be ill, 
but in the next she understood, and in the 
greatness of her joy she ran the rest of the 
way. When she reached the door her 
strength had departed, and she was not able 
to knock. But there was no need, for the 
dogs, who never forget nor cast off, were 
bidding her welcome with short, joyous 
yelps of delight, and she could hear her 
father feeling for the latch, which for once 
could not be found, and saying nothing but 
“Flora, Flora!” 

She had made up some kind of speech, but 
the only word she ever said was “ Father,” 
for Lachlan, who had never even kissed her 
all the days of her youth, clasped her in his 
arms and sobbed out blessings over her 
head, while the dogs licked her hands with 
their soft, kindly tongues. 

“ It is a peety you have not the Gaelic,” 
Flora said to Marget afterwards; “ it iss the 
best of all languages for loving. There are 


fifty words for darling, and my father would 
be calling me every one that night I came 
home.” 

Lachlan was so carried with joy, and fire- 
light is so hopeful, that he had not seen the 
signs of sore sickness on Flora’s face, but 
the morning light undeceived him, and he 
was sadly dashed. 

“ You will be very tired after your long 
journey, Flora, and it iss goot for you to 
rest. There is a man in the village I am 
wanting to see, and he will maybe be cornin’ 
back with me.” 

When Lachlan reached his place of 
prayer, he lay on the ground and cried, 
“ Have mercy on me, O Lord, and spare her 
for thy servant’s sake, and let me not lose 
her after thou hast brought her back and 
hast opened my heart. . . . Take her not 
till she has seen that I love her. . . . 
Give me time to do her kindness for the 
past when I oppressed her. . . . Oh, turn 
away thy judgment on my hardness, and let 
not the child suffer for her father’s sins.” 
Then he arose and hastened for the doctor. 

It was afternoon before he could come, 
but the very sight of his face, which was as 
the sun in its strength, let light into the 
room where Lachlan sat at the bedside 
holding Flora’s hand, and making woeful 
pretense that she was not ill. 

“ Weel, Flora, ye’ve got back from your 
visit, and I tell ye we’ve all missed ye most 
terrible. I doubt those south country folk 
haven’t been feedin’ ye ony too weel, or 
maybe it was the town air. It never agrees 
wi’ me. I’m half choked all the time 
I’m in Glasgow; and as for London, 
there’s too many folk to the square yard 
for health.” 

All the time he was busy at his work, and 
no man could do it better or quicker. 

“ Lachlan, what are ye travelin’ in and 
out there for, with a face that would sour 
milk? What ails ye, man? Ye’re surely 
not imaginin’ that Flora’s goin’ to leave ye? 
Aye, but it’s most provokin’ that if a body 


THE TRANSFORMATION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 45 



has a bit touch o’ illness in Drumtoehty, 
their friends take to prophesyin’ death.” 

Lachlan had crept over to 
Flora’s side, and both were 
waiting. 

“ No, no; ye know I never 
tell lies like the grand city 
doctors, and I’ll warrant 
Flora ’ill be in kirk afore 
Martinmas, and trippin’ up 
the hills as hardy as a Hie- 
land pony by the new year.” 

Flora puts an arm around 
her father’s neck and draws 
down his face to hers, but 
the doctor is looking another 
way. 

“Don’t bother wi’ medicine; 
give her plenty o’ fresh milk 
and plenty o’ air. There’s no 
livin’ for a doctor wi’ that 
Drumtoehty air. It starts 
from the Moray Firth, and 
sweeps down Badenoch, and 
comes over the moor o’ 

Rannoch, and across the 
Grampians. There’s the salt 
o’ the sea, and the fresh air 
o’ the hills, and the smell o’ 
the heather, and the bloom o’ 
many a flower in it. If 
there’s no disease in the 
organs o’ the body, a puff o’ 

Drumtoehty air would bring 
back a man from the gates o’ 
death.” 

“ You have made two 
hearts glad this day, Doctor 
MacLure,” said Lachlan, out- 
side the door, “ and I’m call- 
ing you Barnabas.” 

“ Ye’ve called me worse 
names than that in your time/’ and the doc- 
tor mounted his horse. “ It’s done me a 
world o’ good to see Flora in her home 
again, and I’ll give Marget Howe a call in 
passin’ and send her up to have a chat.” 


When Marget came, Flora told her the 
history of her letter. 


The only word she ever said was “ Father.”— See page 44. 

“ It wass a beautiful night in London, but 
I will be thinking that there iss no living 
person caring whether I die or live, and I 
wass considering how I could die, for there 
iss nothing so hopeless as to have no friend 


46 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSK 


in a great city. It iss often that I have been 
alone on the moor, and no man within miles, 
but I wass never lonely; oh, no, I had 
plenty of good company. I would sit down 
beside a burn, and the trout will swim out 
from below a stone, and the cattle will come 
to drink, and the muirfowl will be crying to 
each other, and the sheep will be bleating, 
oh, yes, and there are the bees all round, and 
a string of wild ducks above your head. It 
iss a busy place, a moor, and there iss not 
one of the animals will hurt you. No, the big 
Highlanders wdll only look at you, and go 
away to their pasture. 

“ But it iss weary to be in London, and 
no one to speak a kind word to you, and 
I will be looking at the crow r d that iss al- 
ways passing, and I will not see one familiar 
face, and wiien I looked in at the lighted 
windows the people were all sitting round 
the table, but there w r ass no place for me. 
Millions and millions of people, and not one 
to say ‘ Flora,’ and not one sore heart if I 
died that night. Then a strange thing hap- 
pened, as you will be considering, but it iss 
good to be a Highlander, for we see visions. 
You will know r that a w r ounded deer will try 
to hide herself, and I crept into the shadow 
of a church and w r ept. Then the people and 
the noise and the houses passed away like 
the mist on the hill, and I w T ass walking to 
the kirk with my father, oh. yes, and I saw 
you all in your places, and I heard the 
Psalms, and I could see through the window 
the green fields, and the trees on the edge 
of the moor. And I saw my home, with the 
dogs before the door, and the flowers that I 
planted, and the lamb coming for her milk, 
and I heard myself singing, and I aw T oke. 
But there wass singing, oh, yes, and beauti- 
ful, too, for the dark church w T ass open, and 
the light wass falling over my head from the 
face of the Virgin Mary. When I arose she 
w\ass looking dow T n at me in the darkness, 
and then I knew that there w f ass service in 
the church, and this w T ass the hymn: 

“ ‘There is a fountain filled with blood.’ 


So I w r ent in and sat dowm at the door. 
The sermon wass on the Prodigal Son, but 
there iss only one w r ord I remember. ‘ You 
are not forgotten or cast off,’ the preacher 
said, ‘ you are missed,’ and then he will 
come back to it again, and it wass always 
‘ missed, missed, missed.’ Sometimes he 
will say, ‘ If you had a plant, and you had 
taken great care of it, and it w r ass stolen, 
would you not miss it?’ And I will be 
thinking of my geraniums, and sayin’ ‘ yes ’ 
in my heart. And then he will go on, ‘ If a 
shepherd w r ass counting his sheep, and there 
wass one short, does he not go out to the 
hill and seek for it?’ and I will see my 
father coming back with that lamb that lost 
its mother. My heart w r ass melting within 
me, but he will still be pleading, ‘ If a father 
had a child, and she left her home and lost 
herself in the wicked city, she will still be 
remembered in the old house, and her chair 
will be there,’ and I will be seeing my father 
all alone, with the Bible before him, and the 
dogs will lay their heads on his knee, but 
there iss no Flora. So I slipped out into the 
darkness and cried ‘ Father,’ but I could not 
go back, and I knew not wiiat to do. But 
this wass ever in my ear, ‘ missed,’ and I 
wass wondering if God will be thinking of 
me. ‘ Perhaps there may be a sign,’ I said, 
and I w T ent to my room, and I will see the 
letter. It w T ass not long before I will be in 
the train, and all the night I held your letter 
in my hand, and wiien I w\ass afraid I will 
read, ‘ Your father is wearying for you,’ and 
I will say, ‘ This iss my warrant.’ Oh, yes, 
and God wass very good to me, and I did not 
want for friends all the way home. 

“The English guard will be noticing me 
cry, and he will take care of me all the 
night, and see me off at Muirtowm, and this 
iss wiiat he will say, as the train w r as leav- 
ing, in his cheery English way, 4 There’s a 
good time coming,’ and Peter Bruce will be 
waiting for me at the Junction, and Maister 
Moncur will be singing a Psalm to keep up 
my heart, and I will see the light, and then 


47 


THE TEA NSFOBMA TION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 


I will know that the Lord liass had mercy 
upon me. That iss all I have to tell you, 
Marget, for the rest I will be saying to God.” 

“ But there iss something I must be tell- 
ing,” said Lachlan, coming in, “ and it iss 
not easy.” 

He brought over the Bible and opened it 
at the family registers; then he laid it down 
before Flora, and bowed his head on the 
bed. 

Will you ever be able to forgive your 
father?” 

“ Give me the pen, Marget;” and Flora 
wrote for a minute, but Lachlan never 
moved. 

When he lifted his head, this was what 
he read in a vacant space: 


Flora Campbell. 

MISSED APRIL, 1873. 

FOUND SEPTEMBER, 1873. 

“ Her father fell on her neck and 
kissed her.” 



AS A LITTLE CHILD. 

< RUMTOCHTY made 
up its mind slowly 
upon any new-comer, 
and for some time 
looked into the far 
distance when h i s 
name was mentioned. 
He himself was 
struck -with the 
studied indifference of the parish, and lived 
under the delusion that he had escaped 
notice. Perhaps he might have felt uncom- 
fortable if he had suspected that he was 
under a microscope, and the keenest eyes in 
the country were watching every movement 
at kirk and market. His knowledge of the- 
ology, his preference in artificial manures, 
his wife's dress, his skill in cattle, and his 
manner in the Kildrummie train, went as 
evidence in the case, and were duly weighed. 


Some morning the floating opinion suddenly 
crystallized in the kirk-yard, and there is 
only one historical instance in which judg- 
ment w r as reversed. It was a strong proof of 
Lachlan Campbell’s individuality that he im- 
pressed himself twice on the parish, and 
each time with a marked adjective. 

Lachlan had been superintending the the- 
ology of the Glen and correcting our ignor- 
ance from an unapproachable height for two 
years before the word went forth, but the 
Glen had been thinking. 

“ Lachlan is a careful shepherd, and fine 
wi’ the ewes at the lambin’ time, there’s no 
doubt o’ that; but I cannot bear himself. 
Ye would think there was no religion in the 
parish till he came from Auchindarroch. 
What say ye, Domsie?” 

“ Campbell’s a censorious body, Drums- 
heugh,” and Domsie shut his snuff-box lid 
with a snap. 

Drumsheugh nodded to the fathers of our 
commonwealth, and they went into kirk 
with silent satisfaction. Lachlan had been 
classified, and Peter Bruce, who prided him- 
self on keeping in touch with Drumtochty, 
passed the word round the Kildrummie 
train next market night. 

“ Ye haven’t that censorious body, Lach- 
lan Campbell, wi’ ye the night,” thrusting 
his head in on the thirds. 

“ There’s nothing Peter doesn’t know,” 
Hillocks remarked with admiration after- 
wards; “he’s as good as the ‘Adver- 
tiser.’ ” 

When Flora had come home, and Drum- 
tochty resumed freedom of criticism, I 
noticed for the first time a certain vacilla- 
tion in its treatment of Lachlan. 

“ He’s plucked up his spirits most extra- 
ordinar’,” Hillocks explained,. “ and he 
whipped by me like a three-year-old last 
Sabbath.” 

“ ‘ I’m glad to hear the Miss is cornin’ 
round fine,’ says I. 

“ ‘ It’s the folk o’ Drumtochty has made 
her well. God bless you, for you have done 


48 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSH 


good for evil,’ and wi’ that he was off before 
I could find a word. 

“ He’s changed, the body, some way or 
other, and there’s a kind o’ warmth aboot 
him ye cannot get over.” 

Next day I turned into Mrs. Macfadyen’s 
cottage for a cup of tea and the smack of 
that wise woman’s conversation, but was 
not able to pass the inner door for the sight 
which met my eyes. 

Lachlan was sitting on a chair in the 
middle of the kitchen with Elsie, Mrs. Mac- 
fadyen’s pet child, on his knee, and their 
heads so close together that his white hair 
was mingling with her burnished gold. An 
odor of peppermint floated out at the door, 
and Elsie was explaining to Lachlan, for his 
guidance at the shop, that the round drops 
were a better bargain than the black and 
white rock. ' 

When Lachlan had departed, with 
gracious words on his lips, and a very sticky 
imprint on his right cheek, I settled down in 
the big chair, beyond the power of speech, 
aud Mrs. Macfadyen opened the mystery. 

“ Ye may well look, for two months ago 
I wouldn’t have believed this day, though I 
had seen him wi’ my own eyes. 

“ It was just this time last year that he 
came here on his elder’s visitation, and he 
catches the bairn in this very kitchen. 

“ ‘ Elspeth,’ says he — it was Elsie the day, 
ye mind — ‘ do ye know that ye’re an 
original sinner?’ 

“ It was nightfall afore she got over the 
fright, and when she saw him on the road 
next Sabbath, she cowered in behind my 
gown, and cried till I thought her heart 
would break. 

“ ‘ It’s miserable work for Christ’s elder,’ 
says Jeems, ‘ to put the fear o’ death on a 
bairn, and I’m thinkin’ he would not get 
much thanks from his Master, if he was 
here.’ And Jeems wasn’t far wrong, though, 
of course, I told him to keep a quiet tongue 
and no contrary the elder. 

“ Weel, I sees Lachlan cornin’ up the road 


the day, and I ran out to catch Elsie and 
hide her in the cow-house. But I might 
have saved myself the trouble; afore I got 
to the garden gate they were cornin’ up as 
friendly as ye like, and Lachlan was callin’ 
Elsie his bonnie pet. 

“ If he hadn’t a bag o’ peppermints — but 
it wasn’t that won Elsie’s heart. No, no, 
dogs and bairns can read folks’ faces, and 
make no mistakes. As soon as I saw Lach- 
lan’s eyes I knew he was a new man. 

“ How has it come aboot? That’s easy to 
guess. Six months ago Lachlan didn’t know 
what father meant, and the heart was 
wizened in the breast o’ him wi’ pride and 
divinity. 

“ He knows now, and I’m fancyin’ that 
no man can* be a right father to his own 
without bein’ akin to every bairn he sees. 
It was Flora he was pettin’, ye see, the day, 
and he’s learned his trade well, though it 
cost him a sore lesson.” 

Wonderful stories circulated through the 
Glen, and were told in the church-yard of a 
Sabbath morning, concerning the trans- 
formation of Lachlan Campbell. 

“ One o’ my wee lassies fell cornin’ down 
the near road from Whinnie Knowe, and cut 
her cheek on the stones, and if Lachlan 
didn’t wash her face and comfort her; and 
more, he carried her all the road to the 
school, and says he, in his Hieland way, 
‘ Here is a brave little woman that has hurt 
herself, but she will not be cryin’,’ and he 
gave her a kiss and a penny to buy some 
sweeties at the shop. It minded me o’ the 
Good Samaritan, folk.” And everybody 
understood that Lachlan had captured Dom- 
sie for life. 

“ It beats all things!” said Whinnie. “ I 
cannot make oot what’s come over the 
cratur. Some o’ the upland bairns pass oor 
way from school, and sometimes Lachlan ’ill 
meet them when he’s after his sheep, and as 
sure as I’m stannin’ here, he’ll lay off stories 
aboot battles and fairies till the laddies ’ill 
hardly go home. I was tellin’ Marget this 


THE TEA NS FORMA TION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 49 - 


very mornin’, and she says, ‘ Lachlan’s be- 
come as a little child.’ I do not agree wi’ her 
there, but a quieter, more cautious body ye 
never saw.” 

Drumtochty was doing its best to focus 
Lachlan afresh, and felt the responsibil- 
ity lay on Domsie, who accepted it cheer- 
fully. 

“ Marget’s always right, neighbors, and 
she’s put the word on it noo. His trouble 
has melted Lachlan’s heart, an’ — it’s in the 
Evangel, ye know — he’s become as a little 
child.” 

This language was too figurative and im- 
posing for the parish, but it ran hencefor- 
ward in our modest speech, “ He’s a cautious 
body.” Cautious, with us, meant unassum- 
ing, kindly obliging, as well as much more; 
and I still hear Drumsheugh pronouncing 
this final judgment of the Glen on Lachlan 
as we parted at his grave ten years later, 
and adding, “ He ’ill be sorely missed by the 
bairns.” 

While the Glen was readjusting itself to 
Lachlan, I came down from a long tramp on 
the moor, and intended to inquire for Flora. 
But I was arrested on the step by the sound 
of Lachlan’s voice in family worship. 

“ ‘ This my son was dead, and is alive 
again; he was lost, and is found. And they 
began to be merry.’ ” 

Lachlan’s voice trembled as he read, but 
he went on with much firmness: 

“ ‘ Now his elder son was in the field.’ ” 

“ You will not be reading more of that 
chapter, father,” interrupted Flora, with a 
new note of authority. 

“ And why not?” said Lachlan, quite 
humbly. 

“ Because you will be calling yourself the 
elder son and many more bad names, and I 
will be angry with you.” 

“ But they are true names, and it iss good 
for me to know myself.” 

“ You have just one true name, and that 
is father. . . . And now you will be sing- 
ing a Psalm.” 


“ There iss a book of hymns here, and 
maybe you will be liking one of them.” 

And Lachlan produced the little book 
Flora got in that London church when the 
preacher told her she was missed. 


“ We will not sing hymns, father, for I am 
remembering that you have a conscience 



With Elsie on his knee — See page 48. 


against hymns, and I did not know that you 
had that book.” 

“ My conscience wass sometimes better 
than the Bible, Flora, and if God will be 
sending a hymn to bind up your heart when 
it wass broken, it iss your father that will 
be wanting to sing that hymn. 

“It iss here,” continued Lachlan in tri- 
umph, “ for I have often been reading that 
hymn, and I am not seeing much wrong in 
it.” 


50 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSH 


“ But each hymn hass got its own tune, 
father, and you will not know the way that 
it goes, and the doctor will not be wishing 
me to sing.” 

“ You are a good girl. Flora, but you are 
not so clever as your father, oh, no, for I 
have been trying that hymn on the hill, and 
it will sing beautiful to a Psalm tune. You 
will lie still and hear.” 

Then Lachlan lifted up his voice in 
“ French ”: 

“ There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins, 

And sinners plunged beneath that flood 
Lose all their guilty stains.” 

The singing was fairly good, with a whis- 
per from Flora, till they came to that verse: 

“ Then in a nobler, sweeter song 
1*11 sing Thy power to save, 

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue 
Lies silent in the grave,” 

when Lachlan seemed to lose the tune, and 
be falling into a coronach (funeral dirge). 

“We must not be singing that to-day, 
father, for God iss very good to us, and I 
will be stronger every week, and maybe you 
will be saying that we are thankful in your 
prayer.” 

Then I realized my baseness, and went off 
on tiptoe (had the dogs been at home it had 
not been so easy to escape) ; but first I heard, 
“ Our Father.” It was a new word for 
Lachlan; he used to say Jehovah. 

The doctor paid his last visit one frosty 
winter day, and was merciless on Lachlan. 

“ What for are ye pamperin’ up this las- 
sie, and not gettin’ her doon to the kirk? 
It’s clean disgraceful in an elder, and if I 
were your minister I would have ye ses- 
sioned. Losh! ye’re hard enough on ither 
folk that are no kirk greedy.” 

“ You will not be speaking that way next 
Sabbath, for it iss in her pew Flora will be 
sitting with her father,” said Lachlan, in 
great spirits. 

Flora caught him studying her closely for 
some days, as if he were taking her 


measure, and he announced that he had 
business in Muirtown on Friday. 

When he came up in the market train he 
was carrying a large paper parcel, and at- 
tempted a joke with Peter at a window of 
the third. From a critical point of view it 
was beneath notice, but as Lachlan’s first 
effort it was much tasted. 

“ Ye ’ill believe me now, Peter, since ye’ve 
heard him. Did ye ever see such a change? 
It’s most astonishin’.” 

“ Man, Hillocks, do ye no see he’s gotten 
back his daughter, and it’s made him anither 
man?” 

Lachlan showed Flora a new pair of 
shears he had bought in Muirtown, and a 
bottle of sheep embrocation, but she did not 
know he had hidden his parcel in the cow- 
house, and that he opened it four separate 
times on Saturday. 

From daybreak on Sabbath Lachlan went 
in and out till he returned with Marget 
Howe. 

“ Mistress Howe iss very kind, and she 
will be coming to help you with your 
dresses, Flora, for we will be wanting you 
to look well this day, and here iss some 
small thing to keep you warm;” and Lach- 
lan produced with unspeakable pride a jacket 
lined with flannel and trimmed with fur. 

So her father and Marget dressed Flora 
for the kirk, and they w r ent together dow r u 
the path on which the light had shone that 
night of her return. 

There w r ere only two dog-carts in the 
Session, and Burnbrae was waiting with his 
for Flora at the foot of the hill. 

“ I bid ye welcome, Flora, in the name o’ 
oor kirk. It’s a glad day for your father 
and for us all to see you back again and 
strong. And now ye ’ill just get up aside 
me in the front, and Mistress Hoo ’ill wrap 
ye round, for w r e mustn’t let ye come to any 
ill the first day ye’re oot, or w T e ’ill never 
hear the end of it.” And so the honest man 
went on, for he w^as as near the breaking 
as Drumtochty nature allow r ed. 


THE TBANSFOBMATION OF LACHLAN CAMPBELL. 51 


“Everybody’s pleased,” said Marget to 
Lachlan, as they sat on the back seat and 
caught the faces of the people. “ This is 
the first time I have seen the fifteenth of 
Luke in Drumtochty. It’s a bonnie sight, 
and I’m thinkin’ it’s still bonnier in the 
presence o’ the angels.” 

“ Flora Cammil’s in the kirk the day,” 
and the precentor looked at Carmichael 
with expectation. “ The folk are terribly 
taken up wi’ Lachlan and her.” 

“ What do ye think of the hundred and 
third Psalm, Robert? It would go well this 
mornin’.” 

“ The very word that was on my lips, and 
Lachlan ’ill be lookin’ for Coleshill.” 

Lachlan had put Flora in his old place 
next the wall (he would not need it again, 
having retired from the office of inquis- 
itor), and sat close beside her, with 
great contentment on his face. The man- 
ners of Drumtochty were perfect, and no 
one turned his head by one inch; but Marget 
Howe, sitting behind in Burnbrae’s pew, 
saw Flora’s hand go out to Lachlan as the 
people sang: 

“ All thine iniquities who doth 
Most graciously forgive. 

Who thy diseases all and pains 
Doth heal and thee relieve.” 

The Session met that week, and a young 
girl broke down utterly in her examination 
for the sacrament, so that not even Burn- 
brae could get a correct answer. 

She rose in great confusion and sorrow. 
“ I see it wouldn’t be fit for the like o’ me 
to go forward, but I had set my heart on it; 
it was the last thing He asked o’ his 
friends,” and she left before anyone could 
bid her stay. 

“ Moderator,” said Lachlan, “ it iss a 
great joy for me to move that Mary Mac- 
farlane get her token, and I will be wishing 
that we all had her warrant, oh, yes, for 
there iss no warrant like love. And there iss 
something that I must be asking of the 
elders, and it iss to forgive me for my pride 


in this Session. I wass thinking that I 
knew more than any man in Drumtochty, 
and wass judging God’s people. But he hass 
had mercy upon Simon the Pharisee, and 
you have all been very good to me and 
Flora. . . . The Scripture hass been fuh 
filled, ‘ So the last shall be first, and the 
first last.’ ” 

Then the minister asked Burnbrae to pray, 
and the Spirit descended on that good man 
of simple heart: 

“ Almighty Father, we are all thy poor and 
sinful bairns, who wearied o’ home and went 
away into the far country. Forgive us, for 
we didn’t know what we were leavin’ or the 
sore heart we gave our Father. It was 
weary work to live with oor sins, but we 
would never have come back had it no been 
for oor Elder Brother. He came a long road 
to find us, and a sore travail he had afore 
he set us free. He’s been a good Brother 
to us, and we’ve been a heavy charge to 
him. May he keep a firm hold o’ 11s, and 
guide us in the right road, and bring us 
back if we wander, and tell us all we need 
to know till the gloamin’ come. Gather us 
in then, we pray thee, and all we love, not a 
bairn missin’, and may we sit doon forever 
in oor own Father’s house. Amen.” 

As Burnbrae said amen, Carmichael 
opened his eyes, and had a vision which will 
remain with him until the day break and 
the shadows flee away. 

The six elders — three small farmers, a 
tailor, a stonemason and a shepherd — were 
standing beneath the lamp, and the light 
fell like a halo on their bent heads. That 
poor little vestry had disappeared, and this 
present world was forgotten. The sons of 
God had come into their heritage, “ for the 
things which are seen are temporal, but the 
things which are not seen are eternal.” 



52 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSH. 


The Cunning Speech of Drumtochty. 


PEECII in Drumtochty dis- 
tilled slowly, drop by drop, 
and the faces of our men 
were carved in stone. Vis- 
itors, without discernment, 
used to pity our dullness 
and lay themselves out for 
missionary w T ork. Before their month was 
over they spoke bitterly of us, as if we had 
deceived them, and departed with a grudge 
in their hearts. When Hillocks scandalized 
the Glen by letting his house and living in 
the bothie (servants’ quarters), — through 
sheer greed of money — it was taken by a 
fussy little man from the South, whose con- 
trol over the letter “ h ” was uncertain, 
but whose self-confidence bordered on the 
miraculous. As a deacon of the Social Re- 
ligionists — a new denomination which had 
made an ’it with Sunday entertainments — 
and chairman of the Amalgamated Sons of 
Rest — a society of persons with conscien- 
tious objections to work — he was horrified 
at the primeval simplicity of the Glen, where 
no meeting of protest had been held in the 
memory of living man, and the ministers 
preached from the Bible. It was understood 
that he was to do his best for us, and there 
was curiosity in the kirk-yard. 

“ What like man is that English visitor 
ye’ve got, Hillocks? I hear lie’s flyin’ aboot 
the Glen blabbin’ and chatterin’ like a 
starlin’.” 

“He’s a gabby body, Drumsheugh, there’s 
no doubt o’ that, but terrible ignorant. 

“ Says he to me no later than yesterday, 
‘ That’s a fine field o’ barley ye’ve there, 
Maister Stirton;’ an’ as sure as death I 
didn’t know where to look, for it was a crop 
o’ oats!” 

“Keep us all!” said Whinnie, “he’s been 
awfu’ neglected when he was a bairn, or 
maybe there’s a want in the poor cratur.” 


Next Sabbath Mr. Urijah Hopps appeared 
in person among the fathers — who looked at 
each other over his head — and enlightened 
them on supply and demand, the game laws, 
the production of cabbages for towns, the 
iniquity of an Established Church, and the 
bad metre of the Psalms of David. 

“ You must ’ave henterprise, or it’s hall 
hup with you farmers.” 

“ Ay, ay,” responded Drumsheugh, after a 
long pause, and then every man concen- 
trated his attention on the belfry of the kirk. 

“ Is there anything at all in the body, 
think ye, Domsie,” as Mr. Hopps bustled 
into the kirk, “or is’t all wind?” 

“ Three measurefuls o’ nothing, Drums- 
heugh; I pity the poor man if Jamie Soutar 
gets a hold o’ him.” 

Jamie w T as the cynic of the Glen — who 
had pricked many a wind bag — and there 
was a general feeling that his meeting with 
Mr. Hopps would not be devoid of interest. 
When he showed himself anxious to learn 
next Sabbath, any man outside Drumtochty 
might have been deceived, for Jamie could 
withdraw every sign of intelligence from 
his face. Our visitor fell at once into the 
trap, and made things plain to the meanest 
capacity, until Jamie elicited from the guile- 
less Southron that he had never heard of 
the Act of Union; that Adam Smith was a 
new book he hoped to buy; that he did not 
know the difference between an Arminian 
and a Calvinist, and that he supposed the 
Confession of Faith was invented in Edin- 
burgh. James was making for general lit- 
erature, and had still agriculture in reserve, 
W’hen Drumsheugh intervened in the hu- 
manity of his heart. 

“ I don’t like to interrupt your conversa- 
tion, Maister Hopps, but it’s no very safe for 
ye to be standin’ here so long. Oor air has 
a bit o’ a nip in it, and is more searchin’ 



THE CUNNING SPEECH OF DRUMTOCHTY. 


S3 


than down South. Jamie ’ill be askin’ ques- 
tions all mornin’ if ye ’ill answer him, but 
I’m thinkin’ ye ’ill be warmer in the kirk.” 

And Drumsheugh escorted Mr. Hopps to 
cover, who began to suspect that he had 
been turned inside out and found wanting. 

Drumtochty had listened 
with huge delight, but with- 
out a trace of expression, 
and, on Mr. Hopps reaching 
shelter, three boxes w T ere 
offered Jamie. 

The group was still lost in 
admiration when Drums- 
heugh returned from his 
errand of mercy. 

“Losh! ye’ve done the job 
this time, Jamie. Ye’re an 
awfu’ critic. Yon man ’ill 
keep a quiet cheep till he 
gets South. It passes me 
how a body with so little in 
him has the face to open his 
mouth.” 

“ Ye did it well, Jamie,” 

Domsie added; “a clean fur- 
row from end to end.” 

“Toots, folk! ye’re makin’ 
too much o’ it. It was light 
ground, no worth puttin’ in a 
plow.” 

Mr. Hopps explained to me, 
before leaving, that he had 
been much pleased with the 
scenery of our Glen, but dis- 
appointed in the people. 

“ They may not be hignor- 
ant,” said the little man 
doubtfully, “ but no man 
could call them haffable.” 

It flashed on me for the first time that 
perhaps there may have been the faintest 
want of geniality in the Drumtochty man- 
ner, but it w T as simply the reticence of a 
subtle and conscientious people. Intellect 
with us had been brought to so fine an edge 
by the Shorter Catechism that it could de- 


tect endless distinctions, and w^as ever on 
the watch against inaccuracy. Farmers who 
could state the esoteric doctrine of “ spir- 
itual independence ” between the stilts of 
the plow, and talked familiarly of “ co- 
ordinate jurisdiction with mutual subordin- 



“ I don’t like to interrupt your conversation, Maister Hopps.”— See page $ 2 . 


ation,” were not likely to fall into the vice 
of generalization. When James Soutar was 
in good fettle he could trace the whole his- 
tory of Scottish secession from the begin- 
ning, winding his way through the maze of 
Original Seceders and Cameronians, Burgh- 
ers and Anti-Burgliers — there were days 


54 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIEB BUSH. 


when he would include the Glassites — with 
unfaltering step; but this was considered a 
feat even in Drumtochty, and it was ad- 
mitted that Jamie had “ a gift o’ discreemin- 
ation.” We all had the gift in measure, and 
dared not, therefore, allow ourselves the ex- 
pansive language of the South. What right 
had any human being to fling about super- 
lative adjectives, seeing what a big place 
the world is, and how little we know? 
Such adjectives would have been as much 
out of place in our conversation as a bird of 
paradise among our muirfowl. 

Mr. Hopps was so inspired by one of our 
sunsets — to his credit let that be told — 
that he tried to drive Jamie into extrav- 
agance. 

“‘Not bad’! I call it glorious, and if it 
hisn’t, then I’d like to know what his.” 

“ Man,” replied Soutar, austerely, “ ye ’ill 
surely keep one word for the twenty-first o’ 
Reevelation.” 

Had any native used “ magnificent,” there 
would have been an uneasy feeling in the 
Glen; the man must be suffering from wind 
in the head, and might upset the rotation 
of crops, sowing his young grass after 
potatoes, or replacing turnip with beet-root. 
But nothing of that sort happened in my 
time; we kept ourselves well in hand. 
It rained in torrents elsewhere, with us it 
only “ threatened to be wet ” — some pro- 
vision had to be made for the deluge. 
Strangers, in the pride of health, described 
themselves as “ fit for anything,” but 
Hillocks, who died at ninety-two, and never 
had an hour’s illness, did not venture, in his 
prime, beyond, “ Goin’ aboot, I’m thankfu’ 
to say, goin’ aboot.” * 

When one was seriously ill, he was said 
to be “ rather ill,” and no one died in Drum- 
tochty — “ he slippit awa’.” Hell and 
heaven were pulpit words; in private life we 
spoke of the “ ill place ” and “ oor long 
home.” 

When the corn sprouted in the stooks one 
late wet harvest, and Burnbrae lost half his 


capital, he only said, “ It’s no lightsome,” 
and no congratulations on a good harvest 
ever extracted more from Drumsheugh than 
“ I daren’t complain.” 

Drumsheugh might be led beyond bounds 
in reviewing a certain potato transaction, 
but, as a rule, he was a master of measured 
speech. After the privilege of much inter- 
course with that excellent man, I was able 
to draw up his table of equivalents for the 
three degrees of wickedness. When there 
was just a suspicion of trickiness — neglect- 
ing the paling between your cattle and your 
neighbor’s clover field — “ He’s no just the 
man for an elder.” If it deepened into de- 
ceit — running a “ greasy ” horse for an 
hour before selling — “ He would be the bet- 
ter o’ anither dip.” And in the case of 
downright fraud — finding out w T hat a man 
had offered for his farm and taking it over 
his head — the offender was “ an ill - got 
wretch.” Ine two latter phrases were dark 
with theology, and even the positive degree 
of condemnation had an ecclesiastical flavor. 

When Drumsheugh approved any one, he 
was content to say, “ He might be worse,” a 
position beyond argument. On occasion he 
ventured upon bolder assertions: “There’s 
no mischief in Domsie;” and once I heard 
him in a white heat of enthusiasm pro- 
nounce Dr. Davidson, our parish minister, 
“ A grand man ony w r ay ye take him.” But 
he seemed ashamed after this outburst, and 
“ shooed ” the crows off the corn with need- 
less vigor. 

No Drumtochty man would commit him- 
self to a positive statement on any subject 
if he could find a w r ay of escape, not because 
his mind was confused, but because he w r as 
usually in despair for an accurate expres- 
sion. It w T as told for years in the Glen, with 
much relish and almost funereal solemnity, 
how a Drumtochty witness had held his own 
in an ecclesiastical court. 

“ You are beadle in the parish of Pitten- 
driegh,” began the advocate with a light 
heart, not knowing the witness’ birthplace. 


THE CUNNING SPEECH OF DBUMTOCHTY. 


55 


“ It’s a fac’,” after a long pause and a 
careful review of the whole situation. 

“ You remember that Sabbath when the 
minister of Netheraird preached?” 

“ Weel, I’ll admit that,” making a conces- 
sion to justice. 

“ Did ye see him in the vestry?” 

“ I cannot deny it.” 

“Was he intoxicated?” 

The crudeness of this question took away 
Drumtochty’s breath, and suggested that 
something must have been left out in the 
creation of that advocate. Our men were 
not total abstainers, but I never heard 
any word so coarse and elementary as “ in- 
toxicated ” used in Drumtochty. Conversa- 
tion touched this kind of circumstance with 
delicacy and caution, for we keenly realized 
the limitations of human knowledge. “ He 
had his mornin’,” served all ordinary pur- 
poses, and in cases of emergency, such as 
Muirtown market: “ Ye could see he had 
been tastin’.” When an advocate forgot 
himself so far as to say “ intoxicated,” a 
Drumtochty man might be excused for being 
upset. 

“ Losh, man!” when he had recovered, 
“ how could any right-thinkin’ man swear 
to such an awfu’ word? No, no, I daren’t 
use that kind o’ langidge; it’s no prudent.” 

The advocate tried again, a humbler, 
wiser man. 

“ Was there a smell of drink on him?” 

“ Noo, since ye press me, I’ll just tell ye 
the whole truth; it was downright stupid o’ 
me, but as sure as I’m livin’ I clean forgot 
to try him.” 

Then the chastened counsel gathered him- 
self up for his last effort. 

“ Will you answer one question, sir? You 
are on your oath. Did you see anything un- 
usual in Mr. MacOmish’s walk? Did he 
stagger?” 

“ No,” when he had spent two minutes in 
recalling the scene. “No, I couldn’t say 
stagger, but he might have given a bit 
tremble.” 


“ We are coming to the truth now; what 
did you consider the cause of the trembling, 
as you call it?” and the innocent young 
advocate looked round in triumph. 

“ Weel,” replied Drumtochty, making a 
clean breast of it, “ since ye must have it, I 
heard that he was a very learned man, and 
it came into my mind that the Hebrew, 
which, I’m telled, is a very contrary lan- 
gidge, had gone doon and settled in his 
legs.” 

The parish of Netheraird was declared va- 
cant, but it was understood that the beadle 
of Pittendriegh had not contributed to this 
decision. 

His own parish followed the trial with in- 
tense interest, and were much pleased with 
Andra’s appearance. 

“ Man,” said Hillocks, “ Andra has more 
gumption than ye would think, and yon ad- 
vocat’ didn’t make much o’ him. No, no, 
Andra wasn’t brought up in the Glen for 
nothin’. Maister MacOmish may have taken 
his glass atween the Hebrew and the Greek, 
and it’s no very suitable for a minister, but 
that’s another thing from bein’ intoxicat.” 

“ Keep us all! if ye were to put me in the 
box this minute, I couldn’t swear I had ever 
seen a man intoxicat in my life, except a 
poor body o’ an English bag-man at Muir- 
town Station. I doubt he had been meddlin’ 
wi’ spirits, and they were wheelin’ him to 
his carriage in a luggage barrow. It was a 
fearsome sight, and enough to keep any man 
from speakin’ aboot intoxicat in yon loose 
way.” 

Archie Moncur fought the drinking cus- 
toms of the Glen night and day with mod- 
erate success, and one winter’s night he gave 
me a study in his subject which, after the 
lapse of years, I still think admirable for its 
reserve power and Dantesque conclusion. 

“ They all begin in a small way,” ex- 
plained Archie, almost hidden in the depths 
of my reading chair, and emphasizing his 
points with a gentle motion of his right 
hand; “nothin’ to mention, just a glass an 


56 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH 


odd time — a burial or a marriage — and 
maybe 'New Year. That’s the first stage; 
they call that moderation. After a while 
they take a mornin’ wi’ a friend, and then a 
glass at the public house in the evenin’, and 
they treat one anither on market days. 
That’s the second stage; that’s tastin’. 
Then they need it reg’lar every day, night 
an’ mornin’, and they’ll sit on at night till 
they’re turned oot. They’ll fight over the 
Confession noo, and last Sabbath’s sermon, 
in the Kildrummie train, till it’s clean 
ridiculous. That’s drammin’, and when 
they’ve had a year or two at that they have 
their first spatie (spate is a river flood), and 
that gives them a bit fright. But off they 
set again, and then comes another spatie, 
and the doctor has to bring them round. 
They drive carefu’ for a year or so, but the 
feein’ market puts the finishin’ touch. They 
slip off sudden in the end, and then they just 
go plunk! Ay,” said Archie, in a tone of 
gentle meditation, looking, as it were, over 
the edge, “just plunk!” 

Nothing ever affected my imagination 
more powerfully than the swift surprise and 
gruesome suggestion of that “ plunk.” 

But the literary credit of Drumtochty 
rested on a broad basis, and no one could 
live with us without having his speech 
braced for life. You felt equal to any emer- 
gency, and were always able to express 
your mind with some degree of accuracy. 
There is, for instance, a type of idler who 
exasperates one to the point of assault, and 
whom one hungers to describe after a be- 
coming manner. But English has no bite. 
He was rare in the cold air of the North, 
but we had produced one specimen, and it 
was my luck to be present when he came 
back from a distant colony, and Jamie 
Soutar welcomed him in the kirk-yard. 

“ Weel, Chairlie,” and Jamie examined the 
well-dressed prodigal from top to toe. “ this 
is a proud moment for Drumtochty, and an 
awfu’ relief to know ye’re safe. Man, ye 
haven’t wanted meat nor clothes; I take it 


real neighborly o’ ye to speak at all wi’ us 
old-fashioned folk. 

“ Ye needn’t look sour, nor cock your nose 
in the air, for you an’ me are old friends, 
and your poor grannie was no more anxious 
aboot ye than I was. 

“ ‘ I’m feared that laddie o’ Bell’s ’ill kill 
himself oot in Ameriky,’ were my very 
words to Hillocks here; ‘ he ’ill be slavin’ 
his flesh off his bones to make a fortune and 
keep her comfortable.’ 

“ It was a real satisfaction to read your 
letter from the backwoods — or was ’t a pub- 
lic house in New l r ork? my memory’s no 
what it used to be — tellin’ how ye were aye 
thinkin’ o’ your old granny, and wantin’ to 
come home and be a comfort to her if she 
would send ye oot twenty pounds. 

“ The bit that affected me most was the 
text from the Prodigal Son — it came in so 
natural. Many a broken heart has that 
story bound up, as we know well in this 
Glen; but it’s done a heap o’ mischief, too — 
that good word o’ the Maister. Half the 
ne’er-do-weels in the world pay their pass- 
age home wi’ that parable, and get a brand 
new outfit for another start in the far 
country. 

“ Now, don’t turn red, Chairlie, for the 
neighbors know ye w T ere to work your way 
home had it no been for your health. But 
there’s a pack o’ rascals ’ill sponge on their 
father as long as lie’s livin’, and they ’ill 
starve a widowed mitlier, and they ’ill take 
a sister’s w&ges, and if they cannot get any 
better a worn-oot body o’ eighty ’ill serve 
them. 

“ Man, Chairlie, if I had my will wi’ those 
creatures I would ship them off to a desert 
island, wi’ one sack o’ seed potatoes, and 
anither o’ seed corn, and let them work or 
die. I know ye’re wi’ me there, for ye aye 
had an independent spirit and wasn’t feared 
to bend your back. 

“ Noo, if I came across one o’ these miser- 
able objects in Drumtochty, do ye know the 
advice I would give him? 


57 


THE CUNNING SPEECH OF DRUMTOCHTY. 


“ I would tell the daidlin’, thowless, feck- 
less, fushionless wratch o’ a cratur ” — 
(equivalent in English to “ dawdling, thrift- 
less, useless, powerless wretch ”) — “ to 
watch for the first freshet and drown him- 
self in the Lochty. 

“ What’s he off through the graves for in 
such a hurry?” and Jamie followed Charlie’s 
retreating figure with a glance of admirable 
amazement; “ they’re no very good manners 
he’s learned in Ameriky.” 

“ Thank ye, Jeems, thank ye; we’re all 
obliged to ye,” said Drumsheugh. “ I was 
achin’ to lay my hands on the fop myself, but 
my certes, he’s had his kail hot this mornin’. 
Do ye think he ’ill take your advice?” 

“No fear o’ him; these ne’er-do-weels 
haven’t the spunk; but I’m expectin’ he ’ill 
leave the parish.” 

Which he did. Had you called him indolent 
or useless he had smiled; but “daidlin’, thow- 
less, feckless, fushionless w T ratch ” drew 
blood at every stroke, like a Russian knout. 

We had tender words, also, that still bring 
the tears to my eyes, and chief among them 
was “couthy.” What did it mean? It 
meant a letter to some tired townsman, 
written in homely Scotch, and bidding him 
come to get new life from the Drumtochty 
air, and the grip of an honest hand on the 
Kildrummie platform whose warmth lasted 
till you reached the Glen; and another wel- 
come at the garden-gate that mingled with 
the scent of honeysuckle, and moss-roses, 
and thyme, and carnations; and the best of 
everything that could be given you; and 
motherly nursing in illness, with skilly 
remedies of the olden time; and wise, 
cheery talk that spake no ill of man or God; 
and loud reproaches if you proposed to 
leave under a month or two; and absolute 
conditions that you must return; and a load 
of country dainties for a bachelor’s bare 
commons; and far more, that cannot be put 
into words, of hospitality, and kindness, and 
quietness, and restfulness, and loyal friend- 
ship of hearts now turned to dust. 


But the best of all our words were kept 
for spiritual things, and the description of a 
godly man. We did not speak of the 
“ higher life,” nor of a “ beautiful Chris- 
tian,” for this way of putting it would not 
have been in keeping with the genius of 
Drumtochty. Religion there w r as very lowly 
and modest — an inward w r alk with God. 
No man boasted of himself, none told the 
secrets of the soul. But the Glen took notice 
of its saints, and did them silent reverence, 
which they themselves never knew. Jamie 
Soutar had a wicked tongue, and, at a time, 
it played round Archie’s temperance 
schemes, but when that good man’s back 
was turned Jamie was the first to do him 
justice. 

“It would set us better if we did as much 
good as Archie; he’s a right-livin’ man an’ 
weel prepared.” 

Our choicest tribute was paid by general 
consent to Burnbrae, and it may be par- 
tiality, but it sounds to me the deepest in 
religious speech. Every cottage, strangers 
must understand, had at least two rooms — 
the kitchen, where the work was done, that 
we called the “ But,” and there all kinds of 
people came; and the inner chamber w T hich 
held the household treasures, that we called 
the “ Ben,” and there none but a few honored 
visitors had entrance. So w^e imagined an 
outer court of the religious life where most 
of us made our home, and a secret place 
where only God’s nearest friends could 
enter, and it was said of Burnbrae, “ He’s 
far ben.” His neighbors had watched him, 
for a generation and more, buying and sell- 
ing, plowing and reaping, going out and in 
the common ways of a farmer’s life, and 
had not missed the glory of the soul. The 
cynic of Drumtochty summed up his char- 
acter: “ There’s a number o’ good folk in 
the pairish, and one or two o’ the itlier 
kind, and the most o’ us are half and be- 
tween,” said Jamie Soutar, “ but there’s one 
thing ye may be sure o’ — Burnbrae is * far 
ben.’ ” 


'58 


BESIDE TEE BONNIE BBIEB BUSH. 


A WISE WOMAN. 



OUR SERMON TASTER. 

DRUMTOCHTY man, 
standing six feet three 
in his boots, sat him- 
self down one day in 
the study of a West- 
End minister, and 
gazed before him with 
the countenance of a 
sphinx. 

The sight struck awe into the townsman’s 
heart, and the power of speech was par- 
alyzed within him. 

“ I’m from Drumtochty,” began a deep, 
solemn voice. “ Ye ’ill have heard o’ Drum- 
tochty, of course. I’ve joined the police; 
the pay is no that bad, and the work is 
nothin’ to an able-bodied man.” 

When these particulars had been digested 
by the audience: 

“ It’s a crowded place, London, and the 
folk aye in a commotion, runnin’ here and 
runnin’ there, and the most o’ them don’t 
know where they’re goin’. 

“ It’s officer this and officer that, from 
mornin’ till night. It’s pitifu’ to see the 
helplessness o’ the bodies in their own town. 
And they’re frivolous,” continued the figure, 
refreshing itself with a reminiscence. “It 
was this very mornin’ that a man asked me 
how to get to the Strand. 

“ 4 Keep on,’ I says, 4 till ye come to a 
cross street, and do not gang doon it, and 
when ye see anither pass it, but whip round 
the third, and your nose ’ill bring ye to the 
Strand.’ 

“ He was a shufflin’ bit cratur, and he 
looked up at me. ‘ Where were you born, 
officer?’ in his clippit English tongue. 

“ 4 Drumtochty,’ I said; 4 an’ we have just 
one man as small as you in the whole Glen.’ 

“ He went away laughin’ like to split his 
sides, an’ the fact is there’s no one o’ them 


asks me a question but he laughs. They’re 
a light-headed folk, and no much educated. 
But we mustn’t boast; they haven’t had oor 
advantages.” 

The minister made a brave effort to assert 
himself. 

“ Is there anything I can do?” but the 
figure simply waved its hand and resumed. 

“ I’m cornin’ to that, but I thought ye 
would be wantin’ my opinion o’ London. 

“ Weel, ye see, the first thing I did, of 
coorse, after settlin’ doon, was to go round 
the kirks and hear what kind o’ ministers 
they have up here. I’ve been in sixteen 
kirks the last three months, and I would 
have been in more had it no been for my 
hours. 

44 Ay, ay, I know ye ’ill be wantin’ my 
judgment,” interpreting a movement in the 
chair, 44 an’ ye ’ill have it. Some was poor 
stuff — plenty o’ water and little meal — 
and some wasn’t so bad for England. But 
ye ’ill be pleased to know,” here the figure 
relaxed and beamed on the anxious minis- 
ter, “ that I’m real satisfied wi’ yourself, and 
I’m thinkin’ o’ sittin’ under ye. 

“ Man,” were Drumtochty’s last words, 
44 1 wish Elspeth Macfadyen could hear ye, 
her that tastes the sermons in oor Glen; I 
believe she would pass ye, an’ if ye got a 
certificate from Elspeth ye would be a proud 
man.” 

Drumtochty read widely — Soutar was 
soaked in Carlyle, and Marget Howe knew 
her 44 In Memoriam ” by heart — but our in- 
tellectual life centered on the weekly ser- 
mon. Men thought about Sabbath as they 
followed the plow in our fresh air, and 
braced themselves for an effort at the giving 
out of the text. The hearer had his snuff 
and selected his attitude, and from that mo- 
ment to the close he never moved nor took 
his eyes off the preacher. There was a tra- 
dition that one of the Disruption fathers had 


A WISH WOMAN. 


59 


preached in the Free Kirk for one hour and 
fifty minutes on the bulwarks of Zion, and 
had left the impression that he was only 
playing round the outskirts of his subject. 
No preacher with anything to say could 
complain of Drumtochty, for he got a 
patient, honest, critical hearing from begin- 
ning to end. If a preacher were slightly 
equipped, the audience may have been try- 
ing. Well-meaning evangelists who came 
with what they called “ a simple Gospel 
address,” and were accustomed to have their 
warmer passages punctuated with rounds of 
spiritual applause in the shape of smiles and 
nods, lost heart in face of that judicial front, 
and afterward described Drumtochty in the 
religious papers as “ dead.” It was as well 
that these good men walked in a vain show, 
for their hearers were painfully alive. 

44 Where did yon weakly body come from, 
Burnbrae? It was light work the day. 
There was no thought worth mentionin’, and 
anything he had was eked out by repe- 
tition. To say nothin’ o’ childish stories.” 

“ He lives aboot England, I’m told, and 
does a heap o’ good in his own place. He 
hasn’t much in his head, I’ll allow that, 
Netherton; but he’s an earnest bit cratur.” 

“ Ou ay, an’ full o’ self-conceit. Did ye 
hear how often he said ‘I’? I got as far 
as sixty-three, and then I lost count. But I 
kept ‘ dear,’ it came to the hundred neat. 

“‘Weel?’ I says to Elspeth Macfadyen. I 
knew she would have bis measure. 

“ * Gruel, Netherton, just gruel, and enough 
to sicken ye wi’ sugar.’ ” 

It was the birthright of every native of 
the parish to be a critic, and certain were 
allowed to be experts in special depart- 
ments — Lachlan Campbell in doctrine and 
Jamie Soutar in logic — but as an all-round 
practitioner Mrs. Macfadyen had a solitary 
reputation. It rested on a long series of un- 
reversed judgments, with felicitous strokes 
of description that passed into the literary 
capital of the Glen. One felt it was genius, 
and could only note contributing circum- 


stances— an eye that took in the preacher 
from the crown of his head to the sole of 
his foot; an almost uncanny insight into 
character; the instinct to seize on every 
scrap of evidence; a memory that was 
simply an automatic register; an unfailing 
sense of fitness; and an absolute impartiality 
regarding subject. 

It goes without saying that Mrs. Macfad- 
yen did not take nervous little notes during 
the sermon — all writing on Sabbath, in 
kirk or outside, was strictly forbidden in 
Drumtochty — or mark her Bible, or practice 
any other profane device of feeble-minded 
hearers. It did not matter how elaborate or 
how incoherent a sermon might be, it could 
not confuse our critic. 

When John Peddie of Muirtown, who al- 
ways approached two hours, and usually 
had to leave out the last head, took time, 
at the Drumtochty Fast, and gave at length 
his famous discourse on the total depravity 
of the human race, from the text, “ Arise, 
shine, for thy light is come,” it may be ad- 
mitted that the Glen wavered in its confi- 
dence. Human nature has limitations, and 
failure would have been no discredit to 
Elspeth. 

“ They were sayin’ at the Presbytery,” 
Burnbrae reported, “ that it has more than 
seventy heads, countin’ points, of course, 
and I can well believe it. No, no, it’s no to 
be expected that Elspeth could give them 
all after one bearin’.” 

Jamie Soutar looked in to set his mind at 
rest, and Elspeth went at once to work. 

“ Sit doon, Jamie, for it cannot be done in 
a minute.” 

It took twenty- three minutes exactly, for 
Jamie watched the clock. 

“ That’s the last, makin’ seventy-four, and 
ye may depend on every one but that fourth 
point under the sixth head. Whether it was 
the 4 beginnin’ o’ faith ’ or 4 the origin ’ I can- 
not be sure, for he cleared his throat at the 
time.” 

Peter Bruce stood helpless at the Junction 


69 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIEB BUSH. 


next Friday — Drumtoehty was celebrating 
Elspeth — and the achievement established 
her for life. 

Probationers who preached in the vacancy 
had heard rumors, and tried to identify their 
judge, with the disconcerting result that 
they addressed their howeriest passages to 
Mistress Stirton, who was the stupidest 
woman in the Free Kirk, and had once stuck 
in the “ chief end of man.” They never sus- 
pected the sonsy motherly woman, two pews 
behind Donald Menzies, with her face of 
demure interest and general air of country 
simplicity. It was as well for the probation- 
ers that they had not caught the glint of 
those black beady eyes. 

“ It’s curious,” Mrs. Macfadyen remarked 
to me one day, “ how the pulpit fashions 
change, just like weemen’s bonnets. Noo, I 
mind when old Doctor Ferintosh, him that 
wrote ‘Judas Iscariot the first Residuary,’ 
would stand two minutes, facin’ the folk, 
and no sit down till he had his snuff. But 
these young smarties make out that they see 
nobody cornin’ in, an’ cover their face wi’ 
one hand so solemn that if ye didn’t catch 
them peepin’ through their fingers to see 
what like the kirk is, ye would think they 
were prayin’.” 

“ There’s not much escapes you,” I dared 
to say, and although the excellent woman 
was not accessible to gross flattery, she 
seemed pleased. 

“ I’m thankfu’ that I can see witlioot 
lookin’; an’ there’s the new minister o’ 
Netheraird, he writes his sermon on one side 
o’ ten sheets o’ paper. He’s that carried 
away at the end o’ every page that he 
doesn’t know what he’s doin’, an’ the sleeve 
o’ his gown slips the sheet across to the 
ither side o’ the Bible. 

“ But Doctor Ferintosh was cleverer. Man, 
it near beat me to detect him,” and Elspeth 
paused to enjoy the pulpit ruse. “ It came 
to me sudden one Sacrament Monday, how 
does he aye turn up twelve texts, neither 
more nor less, and that set me thinkin’. 


Then I noticed that he left the Bible open 
at the place till anither text was due, and 
I wondered I’d been so slow. It was this 
way: he asked the beadle for a glass o’ 
water in the vestry, and slipped his sermon 
in atween the leaves in so many bits. I’ve 
wished for a gallery at a time, but there’s 
more credit in findin’ oot below — ay, an’ 
pleasure, too; I never wearied in kirk in my 
life.” 

Mrs. Macfadyen did not appreciate prodi- 
gal quotations of Scripture, and had her 
suspicions of this practice. 

“Take the minister o’ Pittendreigh noo; 
he’s fair stupid wi’ potterin’ in his garden 
and feedin’ pigs, and hasn’t studied a ser- 
mon for thirty year. 

“ So what does he do, think ye? He beats 
aboot for a while on the errors o’ the day, 
and then he says, 4 That’s what man says, 
but what says the Apostle Paul? We shall 
see what the Apostle Paul says.’ He puts 
on his glasses and turns up the passage, 
and reads maybe ten verses, and then lie’s 
off on the trot again. When a man has 
nothin’ to say he’s aye long, and I’ve seen 
him give half an hour o’ passages and 
anither half o’ fillin’ in wi’ nothing.” 

“ ‘ He’s a Bible preacher at any rate,’ says 
Burnbrae to me last Fast, for, honest man, 
he has aye some good word for a body. 

“ 4 It’s one thing,’ I said to him, 4 to feed a 
calf wi’ milk, and anither to give it the 
empty bucket to lick.’ 

“ It’s curious, but I’ve noticed that when a 
Moderate gets lazy he preaches old sermons, 
but a Free Kirk minister takes to abusin’ 
his neighbors and readin’ scraps o’ the 
Bible. 

44 But Pittendreigh has two sermons at any 
rate,” and Elspeth tasted the sweets of 
memory with such keen relish that I begged 
for a share. 

“ Weel, ye see he’s terrible proud o’ his 
finishes, and this is one o’ them: 

“ 4 Heaven, my brethren, will be far 
grander than the house o’ any earthly poten- 


A WISE WOMAN. 


61 


When the Free Kirk quarreled in their 
vacancy over two probationers, Mrs. Mac- 
fadyen summed them up with such excellent 
judgment that they were thrown over and 
peace restored. 


“ There’s some o’ those Muirtown drapers 
that can deck oot their windows that ye 



“ 1 hear they have no examination in humor at the college.” 


tate, for there ye will no longer eat the flesh 
o’ bulls nor drink the blood o’ goats, but we 
shall suck the juicy pear and scoop the 
luscious melon. Amen.’ 

“ He has no more sense o’ humor than an 
owl, and I aye hold that a man without 
humor shouldn’t be allowed in a pulpit. I 
hear that they have no examination 
in humor at the college; it’s an 
awfu’ want, for it would keep oot 
many a dry-like body. 

“ But the melon’s nothin’ to the 
goat; that beat everything, at the 
Fast, too. If Jeems was aboot I 
daren’t mention it; he can’t behave 
himself to this day if he hears it, 
though ye know he's a quiet man as 
ever lived. 

“ It was anither finish, and it ran 
this way: ‘ Noo, my friends, I will 
no be keepin’ ye ony longer, and 
ye ’ill all go home to your own 
houses and mind your own business. 

And as soon as ye get home, every 
man ’ill go to his closet and shut the 
door, and stand for five minutes, and 
ask himself this solemn question, 

“ Am I a goat?” Amen.’ 

“ The amen near upset me myself, 
and I had to poke Jeems wi’ my 
elbow. 

“ He said no a word on the way 
back, but I saw it was burnin’ in 
him, and he went oot sudden after 
his dinner as if he had been taken 
unwell. 

“ I came on him in the cow-house, 
rollin’ in the straw like a bairn, and every 
other roll he took he would say, ‘ Am I a 
goat?’ 

“ it was no sensible for a man o’ his 
weight, besides being a married man and a 
kirk member, and I gave him a bearin’. 

“ He sobered doon, and I never saw him 
do the like since. But he hasn’t forgot, no, 
no; I’ve seen a look come over Jeems’ face 
in kirk, and I’ve been afeared.” 


can’t pass withoot lookin’; there’s bits o’ 
blue and bits o’ red, and a ribbon here and a 
lace yonder. 

“ It’s a bonnie show and dainty, an’ no 
wonder the lassies stan’ and stare. 

“ But go into the shop, and pity me! there’s 
next to nothin’; it’s all in the window. 

“ Noo, that’s Maister Popinjay, as neat 
and trim a little mannie as eVer I saw in a 
black gown. His bit sermon w T as six poems 


62 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSK 


— five I had heard afore — four anecdotes — 
three aboot himself and one aboot a lord — 
two brooklets, one flower garden, and a 
snowstorm, wi’ the text thirteen times and 
* beloved ’ twelve; that was all; a takin’ 
window, and Netherton’s lassies couldn’t 
sleep thinkin’ o’ him. 

“ There’s ither shopmen in Muirtown that 
fair disgust ye wi’ their windows — they’re 
that ill set oot — and inside there’s such an 
amount o’ stuff that the man can’t get what 
ye want; he’s clean smothered wi’ his own 
goods. 

“ It’s a grand shop for the old folk that 
have plenty o’ time, and can turn over the 
things by the hour. Ye ’ill no get a young 
body inside the door. 

“That’s Maister Auehtermuchty; he has 
more material than he knows how to handle, 
and nobody, hearin’ him, can make head or 
tail o’ his sermon. 

“ Ye get a drive at the Covenants one 
minute and a mouthful o’ justification the 
next. Ye’re no sooner wi’ the Patriarchs 
than ye’re whipped off to the Apostles. 

“ It’s rich feedin’, no doubt, but sorely 
mixed and no very tasty.” 

So the old and young compromised and 
chose Carmichael. 

Elspeth was candid enough on occasion, 
but she was not indiscreet. She could con- 
vey her mind delicately if need be, and was 
a mistress of subtle suggestion. 

When Netherton’s nephew preached the 
missionary sermon — he was a stout young 
man with a volcanic voice — Mrs. Macfadyen 
could not shirk her duty, but she gave her 
judgment with care. 

“ He’s a fine lad, and ’ill be sure to get a 
kirk; he’s been well brought up and comes o’ 
decent folk. 

“ His doctrine sounds right, and he ’ill no 
go off the track. Ye can’t call him bashful, 
and he’s sure to be heard.” 

Her audience still waited and not in 
vain. 

“ But the Lord has no pleasure in the 


legs o’ a man,” and everyone felt that the 
last word had been said on Netherton’s 
nephew. 

THE COLLAPSE OF MRS. MACFADYEN. 

ARMICHAEL used to la- 
ment bitterly that he 
had lost his Gaelic, 
and labored plans of 
compensation for our 
Celts, who were under- 
stood to worship in 
English at an immense 
reduction of profit. 
One spring he inter- 
cepted a Highland min- 
ister, who was return- 
ing from his winter’s raid on Glasgow 
with great spoil, and arranged an evening 
service, which might carry Lachlan Camp- 
bell back to the golden days of Aucliindar- 
roch. Mr. Dugald Mactavish was himself 
much impressed with the opportunity of re- 
freshing his exiled brethren, speaking freely 
on the Saturday of the Lowlands as Baby- 
lon, and the duty of gathering the outcasts 
of Israel into one. He was weaned with 
difficulty from Gaelic, and only consented to 
preach in the “ other language ” on condi- 
tion that he should not be restricted in time. 
His soul had been much hampered in West- 
End churches, where he had to appeal for 
his new stove under the first head, lest he 
should go empty away, and it was natural 
for one escaping from such bondage to put 
a generous interpretation on Carmichael’s 
concession. So Maister Dugald continued 
unto the setting of the sun. His discourse was 
so rich and varied that Peddie of Muirtown 
on original sin was not to be compared with 
it in breadth of treatment and Mrs. Mac- 
fadyen confessed frankly that she gave up 
in despair before the preacher had fairly 
entered on his second hour. Besides the 
encounter of the preacher with Mr. Urijah 
Hopps, which carried the Glen by storm, and 



A WISE 

kept the name of Mactavish green with us 
for a generation. 

Rumors of this monumental pulpit effort 
passed from end to end of the Glen during 
the week, and Peter himself recognized that 
it was an occasion at the Junction on Fri- 
day. 

“ Ye may as weel shut off the steam, 
Jeems,” Peter explained to our engine- 
driver, “an’ give them ten minutes., It’s 
been by ordinar’ at Drumtochty Free Kirk 
last Sabbath night, and Drumsheugh ’ill no 
move till he hears the end on’t.” 

And as soon as the Muirtown train had 
removed all strangers, that worthy man 
opened the campaign. 

“ What kind o’ a disturbance is this ye’ve 
been carry in’ on, Hillocks? It’s downright 
aggravatin’ that ye’re no content pesterin’ 
oor life oot wi’ that English body in the 
kirk-yard, but ye must needs set him up to 
argue wi’ a strange minister at the Free 
Kirk. They say chat the poor man could 
hardly get a word in atween you and your 
lodger. Burnbrae here is threatenin’ ye wi’ 
the sheriff, and I don’t wonder.” 

“ It’s no laughin’ matter, I can tell ye, 
Drumsheugh; I’ve never been so black 
affronted all my life. Burnbrae knows as 
well as ye do that I wasn’t to blame.” 

“ Ye ’ill better clear yourself at any rate, 
Hillocks, for some o’ the neighbors insist 
that it was you, and some that it was your 
friend, an’ there’s others declare ye ran in 
company like two dogs worry in’ sheep; it 
was a bonnie like escapade anyway, and 
hardly fit for an old kirk elder,” — a sally 
much enjoyed by the audience, who knew 
that, after Whinnie, Hillocks was the most 
nnaggressive man in Drumtochty. 

“Weel, ye see it was this way,” began 
Hillocks, with the air of a man on his trial 
for fire-raising, “ Hopps found oot that a 
Hielandman was to preach in the Free 
Kirk, and nothin’ would satisfy him but 
that we must go. I might have suspected 
it wasn’t the sermon the wretch wanted, for 


WOMAN. 63 

he had the impudence to complain that the 
Doctor was tedious Sabbath a fortnight 
when he gave us ‘ Ruth,’ though I never 
minded ‘ Ruth ’ go off so sweet all the times 
I’ve heard it. 

“ If I had imagined what the inquisitive 
body was after I would have seen my feet in 
the fire afore they carried me to the Free 
Kirk that night. 

“ Says he to me on the road, * I’m told the 
minister will be in his national costume.’ 

“ ‘ He ’ill be in his gown and bands,’ says 
I, ‘if that’s what ye mean;’ for the head o’ 
him is full o’ maggots, and no man can tell 
what he will be at next. 

“ ‘ Maister Soutar said that he would wear 
his kilt, and that it would be an interesting 
spectacle.’ 

“ ‘ Jamie’s been befoolin’ you,’ says I. 
‘ Man, there’s nobody wears a kit forbye 
gamekeepers and tourist bodies. Ye ’ill 
better come away home;’ and losh! if I had 
known what was to happen, I would have 
taken him off in my arms. 

“ It’s no right to make me responsible, for 
I tried to wile him away to the back o’ the 
kirk where nobody could see him, but he’s 
that contrary and upsettin’, if he didn’t go 
to the very front seat afore the pulpit. ‘ I 
want a good position,’ says he; ‘ I’ll see 
everything here;’ so I left him and went to 
Elspeth Macfadyen’s seat. 

“ ‘ He’s anxious to hear,’ she said, ‘ an’ 
I’m thinkin’ he ’ill get more than he ex- 
pects. I wish it was well over myself, 
Hillocks; it ’ill be an awfu’ night.’ 

“ These Hielandmen do not put off time 
wi’ the preliminaries, but they were long 
enough to let anybody see what kind o’ man 
Mactavish was. 

“A gruesome fellow, neighbors, wi’ his 
hair hangin’ round his face like a warlock, 
and his eyes blazin’ oot o’ his head like 
fire; the sight o’ him is sure to sober Hopps, 
thinks I. 

“ But no, there’s some folk ’ill take no 
warnin’; there he was, sittin’ in front o’ 


64 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


Mactavish with his thumbs in his arm-holes, 
and a watch-guard spread right across him, 
and one leg cocked over the other, the very 
image o’ a bantam cock flyin’ in the face o’ 
judgment.” 

Drumtochty had never moved during this 
history, and now they drew closer round 
Hillocks, on whom the mantle of speech had 
for once descended. 

“ Mactavish looked at the body once, and 
he looked again just to give him fair notice, 
and then he broke out in the face o’ the 
whole congregation: 

“ ‘ There’s nothing in all the world so de- 
ceptive as sin, for outside it’s like a bonnie 
summer day, and inside it’s as black as hell. 
Now here is this fat little man sittin’ before 
me with his suit o’ blue clothes so bonnie 
and dainty, and a watch guard as thick as 
my finger on his paunch, smilin’ and 
smirkin’, and real well contented with him- 
self; but if he was opened up what a sight 
it would be for men and angels! Oh, yes, 
yes, it would be a fearsome sight, and no 
man here would be able to look.’ 

“ I tell ye, neighbors, ye might have heard 
a pin fall to the ground, and my heart was 
thumpin’ in my breast; I would not come 
through the like of yon again for half the 
plenishin’ o’ Hillocks.” 

There was not a sound at the Junction 
save the steam escaping from the engine, 
and Hillocks resumed: 

“ But the worst’s cornin’. Hopps jumps 
up and faces Mactavish. I’ll no deny there 
is some spunk in the body. 

“ ‘ What right have you to speak like that 
to me? Do you know who I am?’ 

“ He had better been quiet, for he was no 
match for yon Hielandman. 

“ Mactavish glowered at him for maybe 
a minute till the poor cratur fell back into 
his seat. 

“ ‘ Man,’ says Mactavish, ‘ I do not know 
who you are, and I do not know what you 
are, and I am not asking who you are, and 
I am not caring tnough you be MacCallum- 


more himsel’. You are just a Parable, oh, 
yes, just a Farable. But if ye be convicted 
of secret sin ye may go out, and if there be 
anybody else whose sins have been laid 
bare, he may go out too, and if nobody 
wants to go out, then I will be going on 
with the sermon, oh, yes, for it will not do 
to be spending all our time on Parables.’ 

“ As sure as I’m standin’ here ye couldn’t 
see Hopps inside his clothes when Mactav- 
ish was done wi’ him.” 

When the train started Hillocks received 
the compliments of the third with much 
modesty, and added piquant details regard- 
ing the utter confusion of our sermon taster. 

“ ‘ Did ye follow?! I asked o’ Elspeth afore 
I went to put Hopps together. 

‘“Could I follow a bumble-bee?’ was the 
only word I got from her; I saw she was 
beaten for once and was real mad.” 

“ Is’t true Elspeth scuffled wi’ her feet at 
the last head and made him close?” 

“ I'll neither deny nor affirm, Drumsheugh; 
but there’s no doubt when the moon began 
to shine aboot nine, and Mactavish started 
off on the devil, somebody scraped aside me. 
It wasn’t Jeems; he daren’t for his life; and 
it wasn’t me. I’ll no say but it might be 
Elspeth, but she was sore provoked. After 
holdin’ her own twenty years to be mastered 
by a Hielandman!” 

It was simply a duty of friendship to look 
in and express one’s sympathy with Mrs. 
Macfadyen in this professional disaster. I 
found her quite willing to go over the cir- 
cumstances, which were unexampled in her 
experience, and may indeed be considered a 
contribution to history. 

“ I wouldn’t have minded,” explained 
Elspeth, settling down to narrative, “ how 
many heads he gave oot, no though he had 
touched the hundred. I’ve cause to be 
gratefu’ for a good memory, and I’ve kept 
it in fine trim wi’ sermons. My way is to 
place every head at the end o’ a shelf, and 
all the points after it in order, like the plates 
there,” and Mrs. Macfadyen pointed with 


A WISE WOMAN. 


65 



honest pride to her wall of crockery, “ and 
when the minister is at an illustration or 
makin’ an appeal, I always run over the 
rack to see that I’ve the points in their 
places. Maister Mactavish could ne’er have 
got the whiphand o’ me with his divisions; 
he’s no fit to hold a candle to John Peddie. 
No, no, I wasn’t feared o’ that when 
I examined yon man givin’ oot the 
Psalm, but I didn’t like his eyes. 

“ ‘ He’s ravelled,’ I said to myself, 
‘without beginnin’ or end; we ’ill 
have a night of it.’ And so we 
had.” 

I preserved a sympathetic silence 
till Mrs. Macfadyen felt herself 
able' to proceed. 

“ It’s easy enough, ye see, for an 
old hand to manage one set o’ heads 
if they come to ten or a hundred, 
but it’s anither business when a 
man has different sets in one ser- 
mon. Noo, hoo mony sets do ye 
think that man had afore he was 
done?” 

It was vain for a mere amateur 
to cope with the possibilities of Mr. 
Mactavish. 

“ Four, as I’m a livin’ woman, and that’s 
no all; he didn’t finish with one set and begin 
with the next, but if he didn't mix them all 
together! Four sets o’ heads all in a tangle; 
noo ye have some kind o’ idea o’ what I 
had to face.” And Mrs. Macfadyen paused 
that I might take in the situation. 

When I expressed my conviction that even 
the most experienced hearer was helpless in 
such circumstances, Elspeth rallied, and 
gave me to understand that she had saved 
some fragments from the wreckage. 

“ I’ll just tell ye the whole bypotbic, for 
such a discourse ye may never hear all the 
days o’ your life. 

“ Ye know those Hielandmen take their 
texts for the most part from the Old Testa- 
ment, and this was it, more or less, 4 The 
trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come 


from Assyria and the land o’ Egypt,’ and 
he began by explainin’ that there were two 
classes in Drumtochty, those who were bom 
and bred in the parish, which were oor- 
selves, and them that had to stay here owin’ 


“Like the plates there,” said Mrs. Macfadyen.— Page 64. 

to the mysterious dispensations o’ Provi- 
dence, which was Lachlan Campbell. 

“ Noo, this roused my suspicions, for it’s 
against reason for a man to be dividin’ into 
classes till the end o’ his sermon. Take my 
word, it’s no chancy when a minister begins 
at the tail o’ his subject; he will wind a 
Queer spool afore he’s done. 


66 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BR1EB BUSH. 


“ Weel, he went up and he went down, 
and he aye said. ‘ Oh, yes, yes,’ just like the 
threshin’ mill at Drumsheugh, scraikin’ and 
girlin’ till it’s fairly off, an’ by and by oot 
be comes wi’ his heads. 

“ ‘ There are four trumpets,’ says he. 
4 First, a literal trumpet; second, a historical 
trumpet; third, a metaphorical trumpet; 
fourth, a spiritual trumpet.’ 

“ ‘ I’ve got ye!’ I said to myself, and settled 
doon to hear him on the first head, for fear 
he might have points; but will ye believe 
me, he barely mentioned literal till he was 
off to spiritual, and then back to historical, 
an’ in five minutes he had the whole four 
trumpets blowin’ thegither. 

“ It was most exasperatin’, and I saw 
Jeems watchin’ me — but that’s nothin’. 

“ ‘ There be many trumpets,’ says he, * oh, 
yes, an’ it was a good trumpet Zaccheus 
heard.’ And afore I knew where I was he 
had started again wi’ four new heads, as if 
he had never said trumpet. 

“ * A big tree,’ he cries, ‘ an’ a little 
man, oh, yes, an’ this is what w T e will be 
doin’: 

“ ‘ First, we shall go up the tree wi’ Zac- 
cheus. 

“ ‘ Second, we shall sit in the branches wi’ 
Zaccheus. 

‘“Third, we shall come down from the 
tree wi’ Zaccheus; and, if time permits: 

“ ‘ Fourth, w T e shall be goin’ home wi’ the 
publican.’ ” 

It seemed only just to pay a tribute at this 
point to the wonderful presence of mind 
Mrs. Macfadyen had shown amid unpar- 
alleled difficulties. 

“Hoot awa’!” she responded; “the minute 
any heads came I knew my ground; but the 
times atween I was fairly lost. 

“ I’ll no deny,” and our critic turned aside 
to general reflections, “ that Mactavish said 
mony bonnie and affectin’ things from time 
to time, like the glimpses o’ the hills ye get 
when the mist rolls away, and he came 
nearer the heart than the majority o’ oor 


preachers; but certes, yon confusion is more 
than us low-country folk could stand. 

“Just when he was speakin’ aboot Zac- 
cheus as nice as ye please — though whether 
he was up the tree or doon the tree I 
couldn’t for the life o’ me tell — he stops 
sudden and looks at us over the top o’ his 
spectacles, which is terrible impressive, and 
near does instead o’ speakin’. 

“‘We will now come to the third head of 
this discourse. 

‘“The trumpet shall be blown; for,’ says 
he, in a kind o’ whisper, ‘ there’s a hint o’ 
opposition here,’ an’ I tell ye honestly I lost 
heart altogether, for here he was back again 
among the trumpets, and I’ll give my oath 
he never so much as mentioned that head 
afore. 

“ It’s an awfu’ pity that some men don’t 
know when to stop; they might see from the 
pulpit; if I saw the tears cornin’ to the 
women’s eyes, or the men glowerin’ like 
wildcats for fear they should break down, 
I’d say amen as quick as Pittendreigh after 
his goa,t. 

“What possessed Maister Dugald, as 
Lachlan called him, I do not know, but aboot 
half nine — an’ he began at six — he set oot 
upon the trumpets again, an’ when he 
couldn’t get a hold o’ them, he says: 

“ ‘ It will be gettin’ dark ’ (the moon was 
fairly oot), ‘ an’ it is time we were con- 
siderin’ our last head. We will now study 
Satan in all his offices and characteristics.’ 

“ I see they’ve been tellin’ ye what hap- 
pened,” and confusion covered Mrs. Mac- 
fadyen’s ingenuous countenance. 

“ Well, as sure as death I couldn’t help 
it, to be sittin’ on pins for more than two 
hours tryin’ to get a grip o’ a man’s heads, 
an’ him to play hide-and-seek wi’ ye, an’ 
then to begin on Satan at nine o’clock, is 
more nor flesh and blood could endure. 

“ I acknowledge I scraped, but I hope to 
goodness I’ll never be tempted like yon 
again. It’s a judgment on me for my pride, 
an’ Jeems said that to me, for I boasted I 


A DOCTOB OF THE OLD SCHOOL . 67 

couldn’t be beat, but another hour o’ Mac- Then I understood that Mrs. Macfadyen 
tavlsh would have driven me silly.” had been humbled in the dust. 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


A GENERAL PRACTITIONER. 

RUMTOCHTY was 
accustomed to break 
every law of health, 
except wholesome 
food and fresh air, 
and through sheer 
obstinacy of charac- 
ter had reduced the 
Psalmist’s farthest 
limit to an average 
life-rate. Our men 
wore the same 
clothes summer and winter, Drumsheugli 
and one or two of the larger farmers 
condescending to a topcoat on Sabbath, 
as a penalty of their position, and with- 
out regard to temperature. They wore 
their blacks at a funeral, refusing to 
cover them with anything, out of respect to 
the deceased, and standing longest in the 
kirk-yard when the north wind was blowing 
across a hundred miles of snow. If the rain 
was pouring at the Junction, then Drum- 
tochty stood two minutes longer through 
sheer native obstinacy, till each man had a 
cascade from the tail of his coat, and haz- 
arded the suggestion, half-way to Ivildrum- 
mie, that it had been “a bitter scrowie,” a 
“ scrowie ” being as far short of a “ shower ” 
as a “shower” fell below “wet.” 

This sustained defiance of the elements 
provoked occasional judgments in the shape 
of a “ hoast ” (cough), and the head of the 
house was then exhorted by his women folk 
to “ change his feet ” if he had happened to 
walk through a brook on his way home, and 


was pestered generally with sanitary pre- 
cautions. It is right to add that the good- 
man treated such advice with contempt, 
regarding it as suitable for the effeminacy 
of towns, but not seriously intended for 
Drumtochty. Sandy Stewart “ napped ” 
stones on the road in his shirt-sleeves, wet 
or fair, summer and winter, till he was per- 
suaded to retire from active duty at eighty- 
five, and he spent ten years more in regret- 
ting his hastiness and criticising his suc- 
cessor. The ordinary course of life was to do 
a full share of work till seventy, and then 
to look after “ odd ” jobs well into the 
eighties, and to “ slip awa ” within sight of 
ninety. Persons above ninety were under- 
stood to be acquitting themselves with 
credit, and assumed airs of authority, 
brushing aside the opinions of seventy as 
immature, and confirming their conclusions 
with illustrations drawn from the end of last 
century. 

When Hillocks’ brother so far forgot him- 
self as to “ slip awa ” at sixty, that worthy 
man was scandalized, and offered labored 
explanations at the “ beerial.” 

“ It’s an awfu’ business any way ye look 
at it, and a sore trial to us all. I never 
heard tell o’ such a thing in oor family 
afore, an’ it’s no easy accountin’ for it. 

“ The good wife was sayin’ he was never 
the same since a wet night he lost himself 
on the moor and slept below a bush; but 
that’s neither here nor there. I’m thinkin’ 
he sapped his constitution those two years 
he was farm manager aboot England. That 
was thirty years ago, but ye’re never the 
same after those foreign climates.” 



68 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSK 


Drumtochty listened patiently to Hillocks’ 
apologia, but was not satisfied. 

“ It’s clean nonsense aboot the moor. 
Losh keep ’s! we’ve all slept oot and never 
been a hair the worse. I admit that England 
might have done the job; it’s no’ wise 
stra vagin’ yon way from place to place, but 
Drums never complained to me as if he had 
been nipped in the South.” 

The parish, in fact, lost confidence in 
Drums after his wayward experiment with 
a potato-digging machipe, which turned out 
a lamentable failure, and his premature de- 
parture confirmed our vague impression of 
his character. 

“ He’s awa’ noo,” Drumsheugh summed 
up, after opinion had time to form; “an’ 
there were worse folk than Drums, but 
there’s no doubt he was a wee bit flighty.” 

When illness had the audacity to attack a 
Drumtochty man, it was described as a 
“ whup,” and was treated with a fine negli- 
gence. Hillocks was sitting in the post- 
office one afternoon when I looked in for 
my letters, and the right side of his face 
was blazing red. His subject of discourse 
was the prospects of the potato “ breer,” (the 
first shoots that come through the ground), 
but he casually explained that he was wait- 
ing for medical advice. 

“ The good wife is keepin’ up a ding-dong 
from mornin’ till night aboot my face, and 
I’m fair deafened, so I’m watchin’ for Mac- 
Lure to get a bottle as he comes past; yon’s 
him noo.” 

The doctor made his diagnosis from horse- 
back on sight, and stated the result with 
that admirable clearness w r hich endeared 
him to Drumtochty. 

“Confound ye, Hillocks, what are ye plash- 
in’ aboot here for in the wet wi’ a face like 
a boiled beet? Do ye not know that ye’ve 
a touch o’ erysipelas and ought to be in the 
house? Go home wi’ ye afore I leave the 
bit, and send a lad for some medicine. Ye 
stupid idiot, are ye anxious to follow Drums 
afore your time?” And the medical attend- 


ant of Drumtochty continued his invective 
till Hillocks started, and still pursued his 
retreating figure with medical directions 
of a simple and practical character. 

“ I’m watchin’, an’ pity ye if ye put off 
time. Keep your bed the mornin’, and don't 
show your face in the fields till I see ye. 
I’ll give ye a call on Monday — such an old 
fool — but there’s no one o’ them to mend 
anither in the whole parish.” 

Hillocks’ wife informed the kirk-yard that 
the doctor “ gave the good man an awfu’ 
clearin’,” and that Hillocks “ was keepin’ 
the house,” which meant that the patient 
had tea breakfast, and at that time was 
wandering about the farm buildings in an 
easy undress with his head in a plaid. 

It was impossible for a doctor to earn even 
the most modest competence from a people 
of such scandalous health, and so MacLure 
had annexed neighboring parishes. His 
house — little more than a cottage — stood 
on the roadside among the pines toward the 
head of our Glen, and from this base of 
operations he dominated the wild glen that 
broke the wall of the Grampians above 
Drumtochty — where the snowdrifts were 
twelve feet deep in winter, and the only way 
of passage at times was the channel of the 
river — and the moorland district westwards 
till he came to the Dunleith sphere of influ- 
ence. Drumtochty in its length, which was 
eight miles, and its breadth, which was four, 
lay in his hand; besides a glen behind, un- 
known to the world, which in the night time 
he visited at the risk of life, for the way 
thereto was across the big moor with its 
peat holes and treacherous bogs. And he 
held the land southwards toward Muirtown 
so far as Geordie, the Drumtochty post, 
traveled every day, and could carry word 
that the doctor was wanted. He did his best 
for the need of every man, woman and child 
in this wild, straggling district, year in, year 
out, in the snow and in the heat, in the dark 
and in the light, without rest and without 
holiday for forty years. 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


69 


One horse could not do the work of this 
man, but we liked best to see him on his old 
white mare, w T ho died the week after her 
master, and the passing of the two did our 
hearts good. It was not that he rode beau- 
tifully. for he broke every canon of art, fly- 
ing with his arms, stooping till he seemed to 
be speaking into Jess’ ears, and rising in the 


doctor, and, without being conscious of it, 
wished him God speed. 

Before and behind his saddle were 
strapped the instruments and medicines the 
doctor might want, for he never knew what 
was before him. There were no specialists 
in Drumtochty, so this man had to do every- 
thing as best he could, and as quickly. He 



The doctor made his diagnosis from horseback.— See page 68. 


saddle beyond all necessity. But he could 
ride faster, stay longer in the saddle, and 
had a firmer grip with his knees than any 
one I ever met, and it was all for mercy’s 
sake. 

When the reapers in harvest time saw a 
figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, 
or the family at the foot of Glen Urtach, 
gathered round the fire on a winter’s night, 
heard the rattle of a horse’s hoofs on the 
road, or the shepherds, out after the sheep, 
traced a black speck moving across the snow 
to the upper glen, they knew it was the 


was chest doctor and doctor for every other 
organ as well; he was accoucheur and sur- 
geon; he was oculist and aurist; he was 
dentist and chloroformist, besides being 
chemist and druggist. It was often told how 
he was far up Glen Urtach when the feeders 
of the threshing mill caught young Burn- 
brae, and how he only stopped to change 
horses at his house, and galloped all the way 
to Burnbrae, flung himself off his horse, and 
amputated the arm and saved the lad’s life. 

“ You would have thought that every 
minute was an hour,” said Jamie Soutar, 



70 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BB1EB BUSH 


who had been at the threshing, “ an’ I'll 
never forget the poor lad lyin’ as white as 
death on the floor o’ the loft, wi’ his head 
on a sheaf, an’ Burnbrae holdin’ the band- 
age tight an’ prayin’ the while, and the 
mither weepin’ in the corner. 

“‘Will he never come?’ she cries, an’ I 
heard the sound o’ the horse’s feet on the 
road a mile awa’ in the frosty air. 

“ ‘ The Lord be praised!’ said Burnbrae, 
and I slipped doon the ladder as the doctor 
came gallopin’ into the close, the foam flyin’ 
from his horse’s mouth. 

‘“Where is he?’ was all that passed his 
lips, an’ in five minutes he had him on the 
feedin’ board and was at his work — such 
work, neighbors! — but he did it well. An’ 
one thing I thought real kind o’ him: he 
first sent off the laddie’s mither to get a bed 
ready. 

“ ‘ Noo, that’s finished, and his constitu- 
tion ’ill do the rest;’ and he carried the lad 
doon the ladder in his arms like a bairn, 
and laid him in his bed, and waits aside him 
till he was sleepin’, and then says he: 
* Burnbrae, you’re a smart lad never to say, 
“ Collie, will ye lick?” for I haven’t tasted 
meat for sixteen hours.’ 

“ It was mighty to see him come into the 
yard that day, neighbors; the very look o’ 
him was victory.” 

Jamie’s cynicism slipped off in the en- 
thusiasm of this reminiscence, and he ex- 
pressed the feeling of Drumtochty. No 
one sent for MacLure save in great 
straits, and the sight of him put courage in 
sinking hearts. But this was not by the 
grace of his appearance or the advantage of 
a good bedside manner. A tall, gaunt, 
loosely - made man, without an ounce of 
superfluous flesh on his body, his face burned 
a dark brick color by constant exposure to 
the weather, red hair and beard turning 
gray, honest blue eyes that looked you ever 
in the face, huge hands with wrist bones 
like the shank of a ham, and a voice that 
hurled his salutations across two fields, he 


suggested the moor rather than the draw- 
ing-room. But what a clever hand it was 
in an operation, as delicate as a woman’s! 
and what a kindly voice it was in the 
humble room where the shepherd’s wife was 
weeping by her man’s bedside. He was 
“ ill put together ” to begin with, but many 
of his physical defects were the penalties 
of his work, and endeared him to the Glen. 
That ugly scar that cut into his right eye- 
brow and gave him such a sinister expres- 
sion, was got one night Jess slipped on the 
ice and laid him insensible eight miles from 
home. His limp marked the big snowstorm 
in the fifties, when his horse missed the 
road in Glen Urtach, and they rolled to- 
gether in a drift. MacLure escaped with a 
broken leg and three ribs, but he never 
walked like other men again. He could not 
swing himself into the saddle without mak- 
ing two attempts and holding Jess’ mane. 
Neither can you “ warstle ” through the peat 
bogs and snowdrifts for forty winters 
without a touch of rheumatism. But they 
were honorable scars, and for such risks of 
life men get the Victoria Cross in other 
fields. MacLure got nothing but the secret 
affection of the Glen, which knew that none 
had ever done one-tenth as much for it as 
this ungainly, twisted, battered figure, and 
I have seen a Drumtochty face soften at 
the sight of MacLure limping to his horse. 

Mr. Hopps earned the ill-will of the Glen 
forever by criticising the doctor’s dress, but 
indeed it would have filled any townsman 
with amazement. Black he wore once a 
year, on Sacrament Sunday, and, if possible, 
at a funeral; topcoat or waterproof never. 
His jacket and waistcoat were rough home- 
spun of Glen Urtach wool, which threw off 
the wet like a duck’s back, and below he 
was clad in shepherd’s tartan, finished off 
with unpolished riding boots. His shirt was 
gray flannel, and he was uncertain about a 
collar, but certain as to a tie, which he never 
had, his beard doing instead, and his hat 
was soft felt of four colors and seven dif- 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


71 


ferent shapes. His point of distinction in 
dress was the trousers, and they were the 
subject of unending speculation. 

“ Some insist that he’s worn that identical 
pair the last twenty year, and I jnind myself 
him gettin’ a tear behind, when he was 
crossin’ oor palin’, and the mend’s still 
visible. 

“ Others declare that- he’s got a web o’ 
cloth, and has a new pair made in Muir- 
town, once in two years maybe, and keeps 
them in the garden till the new look wears 
off. 

“ For my own part,” Soutar used to de- 
clare, “ I cannot make up my mind, but 
there’s one thing sure — the Glen would not 
like to see him withoot them; it would be a 
shock to confidence. There's not much o’ 
the check left, but ye can aye tell it, and 
when ye see those breeches cornin’ in ye 
know that if human power can save your 
bairn’s life, it ’ill be done.” 

The confidence of the Glen — and tributary 
states — was unbounded, and rested partly 
on long experience of the doctor’s resources, 
and partly on his hereditary connection. 

“ His father was here afore him,” Mrs. 
Macfadyen used to explain; “ atween them 
they’ve had the countyside for weel on to 
a century; if MacLure doesn’t understand 
oor constitution, who does, I would like to 
ask?” 

For Drumtoehty had its own constitution, 
and a special throat disease, as became a 
parish which was quite self-contained be- 
tween the woods and the hills, and not de- 
pendent on the lowlands either for its dis- 
eases or its doctors. 

“ He’s a skillful man, Doctor MacLure,” 
continued my friend, Mrs. Macfadyen, whose 
judgment on sermons or anything else was 
seldom at fault; “ an’ a kind-hearted, though 
o’ course he has his faults like us all, an’ 
he doesn’t trouble the kirk often. 

“ He aye can tell what’s wrong wi’ a body, 
an’ mostly he can put ye right, an’ there’s 
no new-fangled ways wi’ him; a blister for 


the ootside an’ Epsom salts for the inside 
does his work, an’ they say there’s not an 
herb on the hills he doesn’t know. 

“ If we’re to die, we’re to die; an’ if we’re 
to live we’re to live,” concluded Elspeth; 
“ but I’ll say this for the doctor, that 
whether ye’re to live or die, he can aye keep 
up a sharp moisture on the skin. 

“ But he’s no very civil if ye bring him 
when there’s nothin’ wrong,” and Mrs. Mac- 
fadyen’s face reflected another of Mr. 
Hopps’ misadventures of which Hillocks 
held the copyright. 

“ Hopps’ laddie ate gooseberries till they 
had to sit up all night wi’ him, and nothin’ 
would do but they must have the doctor, 
an’ he writes ‘ immediately ’ on a slip o’ 
paper. 

“ Weel, MacLure had been away all night 
wi’ a shepherd’s wife Dunleitli way, and he 
comes here withoot drawin’ bridle, mud up 
to the eyes. 

“ ‘ What’s to do here, Hillocks?’ he cries, 
‘it’s no an accident, is’t?’ And when he got 
off his horse he could hardly stand wi’ stiff- 
ness and tire. 

“ ‘ It’s none o’ us, doctor, it’s Hopps’ lad- 
die; he’s been eatin’ too many berries.* 

“ If he didn’t turn on me like a tiger. 

“ ‘ Do ye mean to say — ’ 

“ * Weesht, weesht!’ an’ I tried to quiet 
him, for Hopps was cornin’ oot. 

“ ‘ Well, doctor,’ begins he, as brisk as a 
magpie, ‘ you’re here at last; there’s m> 
hurry with you Scotchmen. My boy has 
been sick all night, and I’ve never had one 
wink of sleep. You might have come a little 
quicker, that’s all I’ve got to say.’ 

“ ‘ We’ve more to do in Drumtoehty than 
attend to every bairn that has a sore stom- 
ach,’ and I saw MacLure was roused. 

“ ‘ I’m astonished to hear you speak. Our 
doctor at home always says to Mrs. ’Opps, 
“ Look on me as a family friend, Mrs. ’Opps, 
and send for me, though it be only a head- 
ache.” ’ 

4 He'd be more sparin’ o’ his offers if he 


72 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIEB BUSH 


had four and twenty mile to look after. 
There’s nothin’ wrong wi’ your laddie but 
greed. Give him a good dose o’ castor oil, 
and stop his meat for a day, an’ he ’ill be all 
right the morn.’ 

“ ‘ He ’ill not take castor oil, doctor. We 
have given up those barbarous medicines.’ 

“ ‘ What kind o’ medicines have ye, noo, 
in the South?’ 

“ ‘ Well, you see, Dr. MacLure, we’re 
homeopathists, and I’ve my little chest 
here;’ and out Hopps comes w T i’ his little 
box. 

“ ‘ Let’s see it;’ and MacLure sits down 
and takes out the bit bottles, and he reads 
the names wi’ a laugh every time. 

“‘Belladonna; did ye ever hear the like? 
Aconite; it beats all. Nnx Vomica. What 
next? Well, my mannie,’ he says to Hopps, 
* it’s a fine muddle, and ye ’ill better go on 
wi’ the Nux till it’s done, and give him any 
other o’ the sweeties he fancies. 

“ ‘ Noo, Hillocks, I must be off to see 
Drumsheugh’s manager, for he’s doon wi’ 
the fever, an’ it’s to be a tough fight. I 
haven’t time to w T ait for dinner; give me 
some cheese and cake in my hand, and Jess 
’ill take a pail o’ meal and water. 

“ ‘ Fee? I’m no wantin’ your fees, man; 
wi’ that boxy ye don’t need a doctor; no, no, 
give it to some poor body, Maister Hopps;’ 
an’ he was down the road as hard as he 
could lick.” 

His fees were pretty much what the folk 
chose to give him, and he collected them 
once a year at Kildrummie Fair. 

“ Weel, doctor, what am I owin’ ye for 
the wife and bairn? Ye ’ill need three notes 
for that night ye stayed in the house, and 
all the visits.” 

“ Nonsense!” MacLure would answer, 
“prices are low, I’m hearin’; give us thirty 
shillings.” 

“ No, I’ll not, or the wife ’ill take my ears 
off;” and it w T as settled for two pounds. 

Lord Kilspindie gave him a free house and 
fields, and one way or other, Drumsheugh 


told me, the doctor might get in about £150 
a year, out of which he had to pay his old 
housekeeper’s wages and a boy's, and keep 
two horses, besides instruments and books, 
which he bought through a friend in Edin- 
burgh with much judgment. 

There was only one man who ever com- 
plained of the doctor’s charges, and that was 
the new farmer of Milton, who was so good 
that he was above both churches, and held 
a meeting in his barn. (It was Milton the 
Glen supposed at first to be a Mormon, but 
I can’t go into that' now.) He offered Mac- 
Lure a pound less than he asked, and two 
tracts, whereupon MacLure expressed his 
opinion of Milton, both from a theological 
and social standpoint, with such vigor and 
frankness that an attentive audience of 
Drumtochty men could hardly contain them- 
selves. 

Jamie Soutar was selling his pig at the 
time, and missed the meeting, but he hast- 
ened to condole with Milton, w r ho w r as com- 
plaining everywhere of the doctor’s lan- 
guage. 

“Ye did right to resist him; it ’ill maybe 
rouse the Glen to make a stand; he fair 
holds them in bondage. 

“ Thirty shillings for twelve visits, and 
him no more than seven miles away, an’ 
I’m told there w r eren’t more than four at 
night. 

“ Ye ’ill have the sympathy o’ the Glen, 
for everybody knows ye’re as free wi’ your 
silver as your tracts. 

“ Was it ‘ Beware o’ Good Works ’ ye of- 
fered him? Man, ye chose it w r eel, for he’s 
been collectin’ so many these forty years, 
I’m feared for him. 

“ I’ve often thought our doctor’s little bet- 
ter than the Good Samaritan, an’ the Phari- 
sees didn’t think much o’ his chance either 
in this world or that w r hich is to come.” 



A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


73 


THROUGH THE FLOOD. 

OCTOR MAG LURE 
did not lead a sol- 
elm procession 
from the sick bed 
to the dining-room 
and give his opinion 
from the hearth-rug 
with an air of wisdom 
bordering on the su- 
pernatural. He was 
accustomed to deliver 
himself in the yard, 
and to conclude his directions with one foot 
in the stirrup; but when he left the room 
where the life of Annie Mitchell was ebbing 
slowly away, our doctor said not one word, 
and at the sight of his face her husband’s 
heart was troubled. 

He was a dull man, Tammas, who could 
not read the meaning of a sign, and labored 
under a perpetual disability of speech; but 
love was eyes to him that day, and a mouth. 

“ Is’t as bad as you’re lookin’, doctor? tell’s 
the truth; will Annie no come through?” 
and Tammas looked MacLure straight in the 
face, who never flinched his duty or said 
smooth things. 

“ I would give anything to say Annie has 
a chance, but I daren’t; I doubt ye’re goin’ to 
lose her, Tammas.” 

MacLure was in the saddle, and, as he 
gave his judgment, he laid his hand on 
Tammas’ shoulder with one of the rare 
caresses that pass between men. 

“ It’s a sore business, but ye ’ill play the 
man, and no vex Annie; she ’ill do her best, 
I’ll warrant.” 

“An’ I’ll do mine,” and Tammas gave Mac- 
Lure’s hand a grip that would have 
crushed the bones of a weakling. Drum- 
tochty felt in such moments the brotherli- 
ness of this rough-looking man, and loved 
him. 

Tammas hid his face in Jess’ mane, who 
looked round with sorrow in her beautiful 


eyes, for she had seen many tragedies, and 
in this silent sympathy the stricken man 
drank his cup, drop by drop. 

“ I wasn’t prepared for this, for I aye 
thought she would live the longest. . . . 
She’s younger than me by ten years, and 
never was ill. . . . We’ve been married 
twelve year last Martinmas, but it’s just like 
a year the day. ... I was never worthy 
o’ her, the bonniest, neatest, kindliest lass in 
the Glen. ... I never could make out 
how she ever looked at me, that hasn’t had 
one word to say about her till it’s too late. 
. . . She didn’t cast up to me that I wasn’t 
worthy o’ her, not her, but aye she said, 
‘ Ye’re my own good man, and none could 
be kinder to me.’ . . . An’ I was minded 
to be kind, but I see now many little 
things I might have done for her, and now 
the time is bye. . . . Nobody knows how 
patient she was wi’ me, and aye made the 
best o’ me, and never put me to shame afore 
the folk. . . . An’ we never had one cross 
word, no one in twelve year. ... We 
were more nor man and wife, we were 
sweethearts all the time. . . Oh, my 
bonnie lass, wiiat ’ill the bairnies an’ me do 
without ye, Annie!” 

The winter night was falling fast, the 
snow lay deep upon the ground, and the 
merciless north wind moaned through the 
close as Tammas wrestled w’ith his sorrow 
dry-eyed, for tears were denied Drumtochty 
men. Neither the doctor nor Jess moved 
hand or foot, but their hearts were with 
their fellow-creature, and at length the doc- 
tor made a sign to Marget Howe, who had 
come out in search of Tammas, and now 
stood by his side. 

“ D® not mourn to the breakin’ o’ your 
heart, Tammas,” she said, “ as if Annie an’ 
you had never loved. Neither death nor 
time can part them that love; there’s nothin’ 
in the world as strong as love. If Annie 
goes from the sight o’ your eyes she ’ill 
come the nearer to your heart. She wants 
to see ye, and to hear ye say that ye ’ill 




74 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIEB BUSH. 


never forget her night nor day till ye meet 
in the land where there’s no partin’. Oh, I 
know what I’m sayin’, for it’s five years noo 
since George went away, an’ he’s more wi’ 
me noo than when he was in Edinboro’ and 
I was in Drumtochty.” 

“ Thank ye kindly, Marget; those are good 
words and true, an’ ye have the right to say 
them; but I cannot do withoot seein’ Annie 
cornin’ to meet me in the gloamin’, an’ 
hearin’ her call me by my name, an’ I’ll no 
can tell her that I love her when there’s no 
Annie in the house. 

“ Can nothin’ be done, doctor? Ye saved 
Flora Cammil and young Burnbrae, and yon 
shepherd’s wife Dunleitli way, an’ we were 
all so proud o’ ye, an’ pleased to think that 
ye had kept death from anitlier home. Can 
ye no think o’ somethin’ to help Annie, and 
give her back to her man and bairnies?” 
and Tammas searched the doctor’s face in 
the cold, weird light. 

“ There’s no power in heaven or earth like 
love,” Marget said to me afterwards; “it 
makes the weak strong and the dumb to 
speak. Our hearts were as water afore 
Tammas’ words, an’ I saw the doctor shake 
in his saddle. I never knew till that minute 
how he had a share in everybody’s grief, an’ 
carried the heaviest weight o’ all the Glen. 
I pitied him, wi’ Tammas lookin’ at him so 
wistfully, as if he had the keys o’ life an’ 
death in his hands. But he was honest, and 
wouldn’t hold out a false hope to deceive a 
sore heart or win escape for himself.” 

“ Ye needn’t plead wi’ me, Tammas, to 
do the best I can for your wife. Man, I 
knew her long afore ye ever loved her; I 
brought her into the world, and I saw her 
through the fever when she was a wee bit 
lassie; I closed her mother’s eyes, and it 
was me had to tell her she was an orphan, 
an’ no man was better pleased when she got 
a good husband, an’ I helped her wi’ her 
four bairns. I’ve neither wife nor bairns o’ 
my own, an’ I count all the folk o’ the Glen 
my family. Do ye think I wouldn’t save 


Annie if I could? If there was a man in 
Muirtown that could do more for her, I’d 
have him this very night, but all the doc- 
tors in Perthshire are helpless for this 
trouble. 

“ Tammas, my poor fellow, if it could avail 
I tell ye I would lay down this old, worn- 
out body o’ mine just to see ye both sittin’ 
at the fireside, and the bairns round ye, 
comfortable and cozy again; but it’s no to 
be, Tammas, it’s no to be.” 

“When I looked at the doctor’s face,” 
Marget said, “ I thought him the winsomest 
man I ever saw. He was transfigured that 
night, for I’m judgin’ there’s no transfigura- 
tion but love.” 

“ It’s God’s will, and must be borne, but 
it’s a sore will for me, an’ I’m not ungrateful 
to you, doctor, for all ye’ve done, and what 
ye said the night,” and Tammas went back 
to sit with Annie for the last time. 

Jess picked her way through the deep 
snow to the main road with a skill that came 
of long experience, and the doctor held con- 
verse with her according to his wont. 

“ Eh, Jess woman, yon was the hardest 
work I have to face, and I would rather have 
taken my chance o’ anither roll in a Glen 
Urtach drift than tell Tammas Mitchell his 
wife was dyin’. 

“ I said she couldn’t be cured, and it was 
true, for there’s just one man in the land 
fit for it, and they might as well try to get 
the moon out o’ heaven. So I said nothin’ 
to vex Tammas’ heart, for it’s heavy enough 
withoot regrets. 

“ But it’s hard, Jess, that money will buy 
life after all, an’ if Annie was a duchess her 
man wouldn't lose her; but bein’ only a poor 
cotter’s wife, she must die afore the week’s 
oot. 

“ If we had him the morn there’s little 
doubt she would be saved, for he hasn’t lost 
more than five per cent, o’ his cases, and 
they ’ill be poor town’s craturs, not strappin’ 
women like Annie. 

“ It’s out o’ the question, Jess, so hurry 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 75 


up, lass, for we’ve had a heavy day. But 
it would be the grandest thing that was ever 
done in the Glen in our time, if it could be 
managed by hook or crook. 

“We ’ill go and see Drumsheugh, Jess; 
he’s anither man since Geordie Howe’s 
death, and he was aye kinder than folk 
knew.” And the doctor passed at a gallop 
through the village, whose lights shone 
across the white frost-bound road. 

“Come in, doctor; I heard ye on the road; 
ye ’ill have been at Tammas Mitchell’s; 
how’s the wife? I doubt she’s very ill.” 

“ Annie’s dyin’, Drumsheugh, an’ Tammas 
is like to break his heart.” 

“ That’s no cheerin’, doctor, not cheerin’ at 
all; for I don’t know any man in Drum- 
tochty so bound up in his wife as Tammas, 
and there’s no a bonnier woman o’ her age 
crosses our kirk door than Annie, nor a 
cleverer at her work. Man, ye ’ill need to 
put your brains in a steep. Is she clean 
beyond ye?” 

“ Beyond me and every other in the land 
but one, and it would cost a hundred 
guineas to bring him to Drumtochty.” 

“ Certes, he’s no bashful; it’s a heavy 
charge for a short day’s work; but hundred 
or no hundred, we ’ill have him, an’ no let 
Annie go, and her no half her years.” 

“Are ye meanin’ it, Drumsheugh?” and 
MacLure turned white below the tan. 

“ William MacLure,” said Drumsheugh, 
in one of the few confidences that ever 
broke the Drumtochty reserve, “ I’m a 
lonely man, wi’ nobody o’ my own blood to 
care for me livin’, or to lift me into my coffin 
when I’m dead. 

“ I fight away at Muirtown market for an 
extra pound on a beast, or a shillin’ on the 
quarter o’ barley, an’ what’s the good o’ 
it? Burnbrae goes off to get a gown for his 
wife or a book for his college laddie, an’ 
Lachlan Campbell ’ill no leave the place noo 
withoot a ribbon for Flora. 

“ Every man in the Kildrummie train has 
some bit o’ fairin’ in his pouch for the folk 


at home that he’s bought wi’ the silver he 
won. 

“ But there’s nobody to be lookin’ oot for 
me, an’ cornin’ doon the road to meet me, an’ 
jokin’ wi’ me aboot their fairin’, or feelin’ 
my pockets. Ou ay, I’ve seen it all at other 
houses, though they tried to hide it from me 
for fear I would laugh at them. Me laugh, 
wi’ my cold, empty home! 

“ Ye’re the only man knows, Weelum, 
that I once loved the noblest woman in the 
Glen or anywhere, an’ I love her still, but 
wi’ anither love noo. 

“ She had given her heart to anither, or 
I’ve thought I might have won her, though 
no man be worthy o’ such a gift. My heart 
turned to bitterness, but that passed away 
beside the brier bush where George Hoo 
lay yon sad summer time. Some day I’ll 
tell ye my story, Weelum, for ycfu an’ me 
are old friends, and will be till we die.” 

MacLure felt beneath the table for Drums- 
lieugh’s hand, but neither man looked at the 
other. 

“ Weel, all we can do now, Weelum, if we 
haven’t much brightness in oor own homes, 
is to keep the light from goin’ oot in anither 
house. Write the telegram, man, and Sandy 
’ill send it off from Kildrummie this very 
night, and ye ’ill have your man the morn.” 

“ Ye’re the man I counted ye, Drums- 
heugh, but ye ’ill grant me one favor. Ye 
’ill let me pay the half, bit by bit — I know 
ye’re willin’ to do it all — but I haven’t many 
pleasures, an’ I would like to have my own 
share in savin’ Annie’s life.” 

Next morning a figure received Sir George 
on the Kildrummie platform, whom that 
famous surgeon took for a gillie (huntsman’s 
servant), but who introduced himself as 
“ MacLure of Drumtochty.” It seemed as if 
the East had come to meet the West when 
these two stood together, the one in traveling 
furs, handsome and distinguished, with his 
cultured face and carriage of authority, a 
characteristic type of his profession; and the 
other more marvelously dressed than ever. 


76 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


for Drumsheugh’s topcoat had been forced 
upon him for the occasion, his face and neck 
one redness with the bitter cold; rough and 
ungainly, yet not without some signs of 
power in his eye and voice, the most heroic 
type of his noble profession. MacLure com- 
passed the precious arrival with observances 
till he was securely seated in Drumsheugh’s 
dog-cart— a vehicle that lent itself to history 
— with two full-sized plaids added to his 
equipment — and MacLure wrapped another 
plaid round a leather case, which was placed 
below the seat with such reverence as might 
be given to the Queen’s regalia. As soon as 
they were in the fir woods MacLure ex- 
plained that it would be an eventful jour- 
ney. 

“ It’s all right in here, for the wind doesn’t 
get at the snow, but the drifts are deep in 
the Glen, and there ’ill be some engineerin’ 
afore we get to our destination.” 

Four times they left the road and took 
their way over fields, twice they forced a 
passage through a break in a dyke, thrice 
they used gaps in the paling which MacLure 
had made on his downward journey. 

“ I selected the road this mornin’, an’ I 
know the depth to an inch; we ’ill get 
through this steadin’ here to the main road, 
but our worst job ’ill be crossin’ the Tochty. 

“ Ye see the bridge has been shakin’ wi’ 
this winter’s flood, and we daren’t venture 
on it, so we have to ford, and the snow’s 
been meltin’ up Urtach way. There’s no 
doubt the water’s badly swollen, an’ it’s 
threatenin’ to rise, but we ’ill win through 
wi’ a struggle. 

“ It might be safer to lift the instruments 
oot o’ reach o’ the water; would ye mind 
holdin’ them on your knee till we are over, 
an’ keep firm in your seat in case we come 
on a stone in the bed o’ the river.” 

By this time they had come to the edge, 
and it was not a cheering sight. The Tochty 
had spread out over the meadows, and while 
they waited they could see it cover another 
two inches on the trunk of a tree. There are 


summer floods, when the water is brown 
and flecked with foam, but this was a win- 
ter flood, which is black and sullen, and 
runs in the center with a strong, fierce, 
silent current. Upon the opposite side 
Hillocks stood to give directions by word 
and hand, as the ford was on his land, and 
none knew the Tochty better in all its ways. 

They passed through the shallow water 
without mishap, save when the wheel struck 
a hidden stone or fell suddenly into a rut; 
but when they neared the body of the river 
MacLure halted, to give Jess a minute’s 
breathing. 

“ It ’ill take ye all your time, lass, an’ I 
would rather be on your back; but ye never 
failed me yet, and a woman’s life is bangin’ 
on the crossin’.” 

With the first plunge into the bed of the 
stream the water rose to the axles, and then 
it crept up to the shafts, so that the surgeon 
could feel it lapping in about his feet, while 
the dog-cart began to quiver, and it seemed 
as if it were to be carried away. Sir George 
was as brave as most men, but he had never 
forded a Highland river in flood, and the 
mass of black water racing past beneath, 
before, behind him, affected his imagination 
and shook his nerves. He rose from his seat 
and ordered MacLure to turn back, declar- 
ing that he would be condemned utterly and 
eternally if he allowed himself to be 
drowned for- any person. 

“Sit down!” thundered MacLure; “con- 
demned ye will be sooner or later if ye shirk 
your duty, but through the water ye go the 
day.” 

Both men spoke much more strongly and 
shortly, but this is what they intended to 
say. and it was MacLure that prevailed. 

Jess trailed her feet along the ground with 
cunning art, and held her shoulder against 
the stream; MacLure leaned forward in his 
seat, a rein in each hand, and his eyes fixed 
on Hillocks, who was now standing up to 
the waist in the water, shouting directions 
and cheering on horse and driver. 


77 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


filled the doorway, preceded by a great 
burst of light, for the sun had arisen on the 
snow. 

His face was as tidings of great joy, and 
Elspeth told me that there was nothing like 
it to be seen that afternoon for glory, save 
the sun itself in the heavens. 

“ I never saw the equal o’ it, Tammas, an’ 
I’ll never see the like again; it’s all over. 



Jess held her shoulder against the stream.— See page 76. 


“ Keep to the right, doctor; there’s a hole 
yonder. Keep oot for any sake. That’s it; 
ye’re doin’ fine. Steady, man, steady! Ye’re 
at the deepest; sit heavy on your seats. Up 
the channel noo, an’ ye ’ill be oot o’ the 
swire. Well done, Jess! Well done, old 
mare! Make straight for me, doctor, an’ I’ll 
show ye the road oot. My word, ye’ve done 
your best, both o’ ye, this mornin’!” cried 
Hillocks, splashing up to the dog-cart, 
now in the shallows. 

“ Man, it was touch and go for a 
minute in the middle; a Hieland ford 
is a hazardous road in the snow time, 
but ye’re safe noo. 

“Good luck to ye up at .Westerton, 
sir; none but a right-minded man 
would have risked the Tochty in flood. 

Ye’re bound to succeed after such a 
grand beginnin’;” for it had spread al- 
ready that a famous surgeon had 
come to do his best for Annie, Tam- 
mas Mitchell’s wife. 

Two hours later MacLure came out 
from Annie’s room and laid hold of 
Tammas, a heap of speechless misery 
by the kitchen fire, and carried him 
off to the barn, and spread some corn 
on the threshing floor and thrust a 
flail into his hands. 

“ Noo, we’ve to begin, an’ we ’ill no be 
done for an hour, and ye’ve to lay on withoot 
stoppin’ till I come for ye, an’ I’ll shut the 
door to hold in the noise; an’ keep your dog 
beside ye, for there mustn’t be a cheep aboot 
the house for Annie’s sake.” 

“I’ll do onythin’ ye want me, but if — 
if — ” 

“ I’ll come for ye, Tammas, if there be 
danger; but what are ye feared for, wi’ the 
Queen’s own surgeon here?” 

P^ifty minutes did the flail rise and fall, 
save twice, when Tammas crept to the door 
and listened, the dog lifting his head and 
whining. 

It seemed twelve hours instead of one 
when the door swung back, and MacLure 


man, without a hitch from beginnin’ to end, 
and she’s failin’ asleep as fine as ye like.” 

“ Does he think Annie . . . ’ill live?” 

“ Of course he does, and be aboot the 
house inside a month; that’s the good o’ 
bein’ clean-blooded, weel-livin’ — 

“ Preserve ye, man! what’s wrong wi’ ye? 
It’s a mercy I kept ye, or we would have 
had anither job for Sir George. 

“ Ye’re all right noo; sit doon on the straw. 
I’ll come back in a while, an’ ye ’ill see 
Annie just for a minute, but ye mustn’t say 
a word.” 

Marget took him in and let him kneel by 
Annie’s bedside. 

He said nothing then or afterwards, for 
speech came only once in his lifetime to 


78 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


Tammas, but Annie whispered, “ My own 
dear man.” 

When the doctor placed the precious bag 
beside Sir George in our solitary first next 
morning, he laid a cheque beside it and was 
about to leave. 

“ No, no,” said the great man. “ Mrs. 
Macfadyen and I were on the gossip last 
night, and I know the whole story about 
you and your friend. You have some right 
to call me a coward, but I’ll never let you 
count me a mean, miserly rascal,” and the 
cheque with Drumslieugh’s painful writing 
fell in fifty pieces on the floor. 

As the train began to move, a voice from 
the first called so that all in the station 
heard: 

“ Give ’s another shake of your hand. Mac- 
Lure; I’m proud to have met you; you are 
an honor to our profession. Mind the anti- 
septic dressings.” 

It was market day, but only Jamie Soutar 
and Hillocks had ventured down. 

“ Did ye hear yon, Hillocks? How do ye 
feel? I’ll no deny I’m lifted.” 

Half way to the Junction Hillocks had 
recovered, and began to grasp the situation. 

“ Tell ’s what he said. I would like to have 
it exact for Drumsheugh.” 

“Them’s the eedentical words, an’ they’re 
true; there’s no a man in Drumtochty 
doesn’t know that except one.” 

“And who’s that, Jamie?” 

“ It’s Weelum MacLure himself. Man, 
I’ve often rebelled that he should fight awa’ 
for us all, and maybe die afore he knew 
that he had gathered more love than ony 
man in the Glen. 

“ ‘ I’m glad to have met ye,’ says Sir 
George, an’ him the greatest doctor in the 
land. ‘ You’re an honor to oor profession.’ 

“ Hillocks, I wouldn’t have missed it for 
twenty notes!” said James Soutar, cynic-in- 
ordinary to the parish of Drumtochty. 



A FIGHT WITH DEATH. 

II E N Drumsheugh’s 
farm manager was 
brought to the gates of 
death by fever, caught, 
as was supposed, on 
an adventurous visit 
to Glasgow, the Lon- 
don doctor at Lord 
Kilspindie’s shooting 
lodge looked in on his 
way from the moor 
and declared it impossible for Saunders to 
live through the night. 

“ I give him six hours more or less; it is 
only a question of time,” said the oracle, 
buttoning his gloves and getting into the 
brake; “tell your parish doctor that I was 
sorry not to have met him.” 

Bell heard this verdict from behind the 
door, and gave way utterly, but Drums- 
heugh declined to accept it as final, and d3- 
voted himself to consolation. 

“ Don’t cry like that, Bell wumman, so 
long as Saunders is still livin’; I'll never give 
up hope, for my part, till oor own man says 
the word. 

“ All the doctors in the land do not know 
as much aboot us as Weelum MacLure, an’ 
he’s ill to beat when he’s tryin’ to save a 
man’s life.” 

MacLure, on his coming, would say. noth- 
ing, either weal or woe, till he had examined 
Saunders. Suddenly his face turned into 
iron before their eyes, and he looked like one 
encountering a merciless foe. For there was 
a feud between MacLure and a certain 
mighty power which had lasted for forty 
years in Drumtochty. 

“ The London doctor said that Saunders 
would slip awa’ afore mornin’, did he? 
Weel, he’s an authority on fevers an’ such 
like diseases, an’ ought to know. 

“ It’s maybe presumptuous o’ me to differ 
from him, and it wouldn’t be very respect- 
ful o’ Saunders to live after this opinion. 




A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


But Saunders was aye contrary an’ ill to 
drive, an’ he’s as like as no to go his own 
gait. 

“ I’m no meanin’ to reflect on so clever a 
man, but he didn’t under- 
stand the situation. He can 
read fevers like a book, but 
he never came across such a 
thing as a Drumtochty consti- 
tution all his days. 

“ Ye see, when onybody 
gets as low as poor Saunders 
here, it’s just a hand-to-hand 
wrastle atween the fever an’ 
his constitution, an’ of course, 
if he had been a sickly, 
stunted, pithless effigy o’ a 
cratur, fed on tea an’ made 
dishes an’ poisoned wi’ bad 
air, Saunders would have 
no chance; he was bound 
to go oot like the snuff o’ a 
candle. 

“ But Saunders has been 
fillin’ his lungs for five and 
thirty year wi’ strong Drum- 
tochty air, an’ eatin’ nothin’ 
but coarse oatmeal, an’ 
drinkin’ nothin’ but fresh 
milk from the cow, an’ fol- 
lowin’ the plow through the 
new - turned, sweet - smellin’ 
earth, an’ swingin’ the scythe 
in haytime an’ harvest till 
the legs an’ arms o’ him were 
iron, an’ his chest was like 
the cuttin’ o’ an oak tree. 

“ He’s a woesome sight the 
night, but Saunders was a 
sturdy man once, and will 
never let his life be taken 
lightly from him. No, no, he 
hasn’t sinned against Nature, 
an’ Nature ’ill stand by him noo in his hour 
o’ distress. 

“ I daren’t say yea, Bell, much as I would 
like, for this is an evil disease, cunnin’ an’ 


treacherous, but I’ll not say nay, so keep 
your heart from despair. 

• “ It will be a sore fight, but it ’ill be settled 
one way or anitlier by six o’clock the morn’s 


“ 1 saw noo there was to be a stand-up tight.”— See page 80. 


morn. No man can prophesy hoo it ’ill end, 
but one thing is certain — I’ll no see death 
take a Drumtochty man afore his time if I 
can help it. 


80 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


“ Noo, Bell, my woman, ye’re near dead wi’ 
tire, an’ no wonder. Ye’ve done all ye 
could for your man, an’ ye ’ill trust him the 
night to Drumsheugh an’ me; we ’ill no fail 
him or you. 

“ Lie doon an’ rest, an’ if it be the will o’ 
the Almighty, I’ll waken ye in the mornin’ 
to see a livin, conscious man, an’ if it be 
itherwise I’ll come for ye the sooner, Bell,” 
and the big red hand went out to the anxious 
wife. “ I give you my word.” 

Bell leaned over the bed, and at the sight 
of Saunders’ face a superstitious dread 
seized her. 

“ See, doctor, the shadow of death is on 
him that never lifts. I've seen it afore, on 
my father an’ mither. I cannot leave him, 
I cannot leave him!” 

“ It’s hoverin’, Bell, but it hasn’t fallen; 
please God it never will. Go oot an’ get 
some sleep, for it’s time we were at oor 
work. 

“ The doctors in the towns have nurses 
an’ all kinds o’ handy apparatus,” said 
MacLure to Drumsheugh, when Bell had 
gone, “ but you an’ me ’ill need to be 
nurse the night, an’ use such things as we 
have. 

“ It’ll be a long night an’ anxious work, 
but I would rather have ye, old friend, wi’ 
me than ony man in the Glen. Ye’re no 
feared to give a hand?” 

“ Me feared? No likely. Man, Saunders 
came to me but a laddie, and has been on 
Drumsheugh for eight an’ twenty years, an’ 
though he be a stubborn fellow, he’s as 
faithful a servant as ever lived. It’s woe- 
some to see him lyin’ there moanin’ like 
some dumb animal from mornin’ to night, 
an’ no able to answer his own wife when she 
speaks. 

“ Do ye think, Weelum, he has a chance?” 

“ That he has, at ony rate, and it’ll no be 
your blame or mine if he hasn’t more.” 

While he was speaking, MacLure took off 
his coat and waistcoat and hung them on 
the back of the door. Then he rolled up the 


sleeves of his shirt and laid bare two arms 
that were nothing but bone. and muscle. 

“ It made my very blood run faster to the 
end o’ my fingers just to look at him,” 
Drumsheugh expatiated afterwards to 
Hillocks, “ for I saw noo that there was to 
be a stand-up fight atween him an’ death for 
Saunders, an’ when I thought o’ Bell an’ 
her bairns, I knew who would win.” 

“ Off wi’ your coat, Drumsheugh,” said 
MacLure; “ye ’ill need to bend your back 
the night; gather all the pails in the house 
an’ fill them at the spring, an’ I’ll come doon 
to help ye wi’ the carry in’.” 

It was a wonderful ascent up the steep 
pathway from the spring to the cottage on 
its little knoll, the two men in single file, 
bareheaded, silent, solemn, each with a pail 
of water in either hand, MacLure limping 
painfully in front, Drumsheugh blowing be- 
hind; and when they laid down their burden 
in the sick room, where the bits of furniture 
had been put to one side and a large tub 
held the center, Drumsheugh looked curi- 
ously at the doctor. 

“No, I’m no daft; ye needn’t be feared; 
but ye’re to get your first lesson in medicine 
the night, an’ if we win the battle ye can 
set up for yourself in the Glen. 

“ There’s two dangers — that Saunders* 
strength fails, an’ that the force o’ the fever 
grows; and we have just two weapons. Yon 
milk on the drawers’ head is to keep up the 
strength, and this cool fresh water is to keep 
doon the fever. We ’ill cast oot the fever 
by the virtue o’ the earth an’ the water.” 

“ Do ye mean to put Saunders in the tub?” 

“ Ye have it nuo, Drumsheugh, an’ that’s 
hoo I need your help.” 

“ Man, Hillocks,’ Drumsheugh used to 
moralize, as often as he remembered that 
critical night, “ it was humblin’ to see hoo 
low sickness can bring a powerfu’ man, an’ 
ought to keep us from pride. 

“A month afore there wasn’t a stronger 
man in the Glen than Saunders, an’ noo he 
was just a bundle o’ skin an’ bone, that 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


81 


neither saw, nor heard, nor moved, nor felt, 
that knew nothin’ that was done to him. 

“ Hillocks, I wouldn’t have wished ony 
man to have seen Saunders — for it will 
never pass from before my eyes as long as 
I live — but I wish all the Glen had stood by 
MacLure kneelin’ on the floor wi’ his sleeves 
up to his arm-pits and waitin’ on Saunders. 

“ Yon big man was as pitifu’ an’ gentle as 
a woman, and when he laid the poor fellow 
in his bed again, he wrapped him over as a 
mither does her bairn.” 

Thrice it was done, Drumsheugh ever 
bringing up colder water from the spring, 
and twice MacLure was silent; but after the 
third time there was a gleam in his eye. 

“We’re holdin’ oor own; we’re no bein’ 
mastered at ony rate; more I cannot say for 
three hours. 

“ We ’ill no need the water again, Drums- 
heugh; go oot an’ take a breath o’ air; I'm 
on guard myself.” 

It was the hour before daybreak, and 
Drumsheugh wandered through fields he 
had trodden since childhood. The cattle lay 
sleeping in the pastures; their shadowy 
forms, with a patch of whiteness here and 
there, having a weird suggestion of death. 
He heard the burn running over the stones; 
fifty years ago he had made a dam that 
lasted till winter. The hooting of an owl 
made him start; one had frightened him as 
a boy so that he ran home to his mother — 
she died thirty years ago. The smell of ripe 
corn filled the air; it would soon be cut and 
garnered. He could see the dim outlines of 
his house, all dark and cold; no one he loved 
was beneath the roof. The lighted window 
in Saunders’ cottage told where a man hung 
between life and death, but love was in that 
home. The futility of life arose before this 
lonely man, and overcame his heart with an 
indescribable sadness. What a vanity was 
all human labor, what a mystery all human 
life! 

But while he stood a subtle change came 
over the night, and the air trembled round 


him as if one had whispered. Drumsheugh 
lifted his head and looked eastwards. A 
faint gray stole over the distant horizon, 
and suddenly a cloud reddened before his 
eyes. The sun was not in sight, but was 
rising and sending forerunners before his 
face. The cattle began to stir, a blackbird 
burst into song, and before Drumsheugh 
crossed the threshold of Saunders’ house, the 
first ray of the sun had broken on a peak of 
the Grampians. 

MacLure left the bedside, and as the light 
of the candle fell on the doctor’s face, 
Drumsheugh could see that it was going 
well with Saunders. 

“He’s no worse, an’ it’s half six noo; it’s 
too soon to say more, but I’m hopin’ for the 
best. Sit doon an’ take a sleep, for ye’re 
needin’ ’t, Drumsheugh, an’ man, ye have 
worked for it.” 

As he dozed off, the last thing Drumsheugh 
saw was the doctor sitting erect in his chair, 
a clinched fist resting on the bed, and his 
eyes already bright with the vision of vic- 
tory. 

He awoke with a start, to find the room 
flooded with the morning sunshine, and 
every trace of last night’s work removed. 

The doctor was bending over the bed and 
speaking to Saunders. 

“It’s me, Saunders — Doctor MacLure, ye 
know; don’t try to speak or move; just let 
this drop o’ milk slip doon — ye ’ill be 
needin’ your breakfast, lad — an’ go to sleep 
again.” 

Five minutes and Saunders had fallen into 
a deep, healthy sleep, all tossing and moan- 
ing come to an end. Then MacLure stepped 
softly across the floor, picked up his coat 
and waistcoat, and went out at the door. 

Drumsheugh arose and followed him with- 
out a word. They passed through the little 
garden, sparkling with dew, and beside the 
cow-house, where Hawkie rattled her chain, 
impatient for Bell’s coming, and by Saun- 
ders’ little strip of corn ready for the 
scythe, till they reached an open field. There 


82 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIEB BUSH. 


they came to a halt, and Doctor MacLure for 
once allowed himself to go. 

His coat he flung east and his waistcoat 
■west, as far as he could hurl them, and it 
was plain he would have shouted had he 
been a complete mile from Saunders’ room. 
He struck Drumsheugh a mighty blow that 
well-nigh levelled that substantial man in 
the dust, and then the doctor of Drumtochty 
issued his bulletin. 

“ Saunders wasn’t to live through the 
night, but he’s livin’ this minute, an’ like to 
live. 

“ He’s got by the worst clean an’ fair, an’ 
wi’ him that’s as good as cure. 

“It ’ill be a grand wakenin’ for Bell; she 
’ill no be a widow yet, nor the bairnies 
fatherless. 

“There’s no use glowerin’ at me, Drums- 
heugh, for a body’s daft at a time, an’ I 
can’t contain myself, an’ I’m no goin’ to 
try.” 

Then it dawned upon Drumsheugh that 
the doctor was attempting the Highland 
fling. 

“ He’s ill made to begin wi’,” Drumsheugh 
explained in the kirk-yard next Sabbath, 
“ an’ ye know he’s been terrible mishandled 
by accidents, so ye may think what like it 
was; but, as sure as death, o’ all the Hie- 
land flings I ever saw, yon was the bonniest. 

“ I haven’t shaken my legs for thirty 
years, but I confess to a turn myself. Ye 
may laugh if ye like, neighbors, but the 
thought o’ Bell an’ the news that was 
waitin’ her got the better o’ me.” 

Drumtochty did not laugh. Drumtochty 
looked as if it could have done quite other- 
wise for joy. 

“ I would have made a third, if I had been 
there,” announced Hillocks aggressively. 

“ Come on, Drumsheugh,” said Jamie 
Soutar, “give’s the end o’t; it was a mighty 
mornin’.” 

“ ‘ We’re two old fools,’ says MacLure to 
me, and he gathers up his clothes. ‘ It 
would set us better to be tellin’ Bell.’ 


“ She was sleeping on the top o’ her bed, 
wrapped in a plaid, fair worn oot wi’ three 
weeks nursin’ o’ Saunders, but at the first 
touch she was oot upon the floor. 

“ ‘ Is Saunders dyin’, doctor?’ she cries. 
‘ Ye promised to w r aken me; don’t tell me it’s 
all over!’ 

“‘There’s no dyin’ aboot him, Bell; ye’re 
no to lose your man this time, so far as I 
can see. Come in an’ judge for yourself.’ 

“ Bell looked at Saunders, and the tears of 
joy fell on the bed like rain. 

“‘The shadow’s lifted!’ she said; ‘he’s 
come back from the mouth o’ the tomb. I 
prayed last night that the Lord would leave 
Saunders till the laddies could do for them- 
selves, an’ these words came into my mind, 
“ Weeping may endure for a night, but joy 
cometh in the mornin’.” The Lord heard 
my prayer, and joy has come in the mornin’,’ 
an’ she gripped the doctor’s hand. ‘ Ye’ve 
been the instrument, Doctor MacLure. Ye 
wouldn’t give him up, and ye did what no 
ither could for him, an’ I’ve my man the 
day an’ the bairns have their father.’ 

* “ An’ afore MacLure knew what she was 
doin’, Bell lifted his hand to her lips an’ 
kissed it.” 

“Did she, though?” cried Jamie. “Who 
would have thought there was as much 
spunk in Bell?” 

“ MacLure, of course, was clean scandal- 
ized,” continued Drumsheugh, “ an’ pulled 
away his hand as if it had been burned. 

“ No man can bear that kind o’ pamperin’, 
an’ I never heard o’ such a thing in the 
parish, but we must excuse Bell, neighbors; 
it was an occasion by ordinar,” and Drums- 
heugh made Bell’s apology to Drumtochty 
for such an excess of feeling. 

“ I see nothin’ to excuse,” insisted Jamie, 
w T ho was in great humor that Sabbath. 
“ The doctor has never been burdened wi’ 
fees, an’ I’m judgin’ he counted a woman’s 
gratitude that he saved from widowhood 
the best he ever got.” 

“ I went up to the manse last night,” con- 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 83 


eluded Drumsheugh, “an’ told the minister 
hoo the doctor fought eight hours for Saun- 
ders’ life an’ won, an’ ye never saw a man 
so carried. He walked up and down the 
room all the time, an’ every other minute 
he blew his nose like a trumpet. 

“ ‘ I’ve a cold in my head to-night, Drums- 
heugh,’ says he; ‘ never mind me.’ ” 

“ I’ve had the same myself in such circum- 
stances; they come on sudden,” said .Tamie. 

“ I wager there ’ill be a new bit in the last 
prayer the day, an’ somethin’ worth 
hearin’.” 

And the fathers went into kirk in great 
expectation. 

“ We beseech Thee for such as be sick, 
that thy hand may be on them for good, 
and that thou wouldst restore them again 
to health and strength,” was the familar 
petition of every Sabbath. 

The congregation waited in silence that 
might be heard, and were not disappointed 
that morning, for the minister continued: 

“ Especially do we render Thee hearty 
thanks that thou didst spare thy servant 
who was brought down into the dust of 
death, and hast given him back to his wife 
and children, and unto that end didst won- 
derfully bless the skill of him who goes out 
and in among us, the beloved physician of 
this parish and adjacent districts.” 

“Didn’t I tell ye, neighbors?” said Jamie, 
as they stood at the kirk-yard gate before 
dispersing. “ There’s no a man in the 
county could have done it better. ‘ Beloved 
physician,’ an’ his ‘ skill,’ too, an’ bringin’ in 
‘adjacent districts’; that’s Glen Urtach; it 
was handsome, and the doctor earned it — 
ay, every word. 

“ It’s an awfu’ pity he didn’t hear yon; but 
dear knows where he is the day, most likely 
up — ” 

Jamie stopped suddenly at the sound of 
a horse’s feet, and there, coming down the 
avenue of beech trees that made a long vista 
from the kirk gate, they saw the doctor and 
Jess. 


One thought flashed through the minds of 
the fathers of the commonwealth. 

It ought to be done as he passed, and it 
would be done if it were not the Sabbath. 
Of course it was out of the question on 
Sabbath. 

The doctor is now distinctly visible, riding 
after his fashion. 

There was never such a chance, if it were 
only Saturday; and each man reads his own 
regret in his neighbor’s face. 

The doctor is nearing them rapidly; they 
can imagine the shepherd’s tartan. 

Sabbath or no Sabbath, the Glen cannot 
let him pass without some tribute of their 
pride. 

Jess has recognized friends, and the doctor 
is drawing rein. 

“ It has to be done!” said Jamie, desper- 
ately, “ say what we like.” Then they all 
looked towards him, and Jamie led. 

“ Hurrah!” swinging his Sabbath hat in 
the air, “ hurrah!” and once more, “ hurrah!” 
Whinnie Knowe, Drumsheugh and Hillocks 
joining lustily, but Tammas Mitchell carry- 
ing all before him, for he had found at last 
an expression for his feelings that rendered 
speech unnecessary. 

It was a solitary experience for horse and 
rider, and Jess bolted without delay. But 
the sound followed and surrounded them, 
and as they passed the corner of the kirk- 
yard, a figure waved his college cap over 
the wall and gave a cheef on his own ac- 
count. 

“ God bless you, doctor, and well done!” 

“ If it isn’t the minister!” cried Drums- 
heugh, “ in his gown an’ bands; to think o’ 
that; but I respect him for it.” 

Then Drumtochty became self-conscious, 
and went home in confusion of face and 
unbroken silence, except Jamie Soutar, who 
faced his neighbors at the parting of the 
ways without shame. 

“ I would do it all over again if I had the 
chance; he got nothin’ but his due.” 

It was two miles before Jess composed her 


84 


BESlf>E THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


mind, and tlie doctor and she could discuss 
it quietly together. 

“ I can hardly believe my ears, Jess, an’ 
the Sabbath too; their very judgment has 
gone from the folk of Drumtochty. 

“ They’ve heard about Saunders, I’m 
thinkin’, woman, and they’re pleased we 
brought him round; he’s fairly on the mend, 
ye know, noo. 

“ I never expected the like o’ this, though, 
and it was just a wee thing more than I 
could have stood. 

“Ye have your share in’t too, lass; we’ve 
had mony a hard night and day thegither, 
an’ yon was oor reward. No mony men in 
this warld ’ill ever get a better, for it came 
from the heart o’ honest folk.” 


THE DOCTOR’S LAST 
JOURNEY. 

RUMTOCHTY had a 
vivid recollection of 
the winter when Dr. 
MacLure was laid 
up for two months 
with a broken leg, 
and the Glen was depen- 
dent on the dubious min- 
istrations of the Kildrum- 
mie doctor. Mrs. Mac- 
fadyen also pretended to 
recall a “ whup ” of some 
kind or other he had in the fifties, but this 
was considered to be rather a pyrotechnic 
display of Elspeth’s superior memory than a 
serious statement of fact. MacLure could 
not have ridden through the snow of forty 
winters without suffering, yet no one ever 
heard him complain, and he never pleaded 
illness to any messenger by night or day. 

“ It took me,” said Jamie Soutar to Milton 
afterwards, “ the greater part o’ ten minutes 
to dig him an’ Jess oot one snowy night 
when Drums turned bad sudden, but if he 
didn’t try to excuse himself for no bearin’ 



me at once wi’ some story aboot just cornin’ 
in from Glen Urtach, an’ no bein’ in his bed 
for the last two nights. 

“ He was that careful o’ himself an’ lazy 
that if it hadn’t been for the silver, I’ve 
often thought, Milton, he would never have 
done a handstroke o’ work in the Glen. 

“ What disgusted me was the way the 
bairns were taken in wi’ him. Man, I’ve 
seen him take a wee laddie on his knee that 
his own mither couldn’t quiet, an’ lilt ‘ Sing 
a song o’ sixpence ’ till the bit mannie would 
be laughin’ like a good one, an’ pullin’ the 
doctor’s beard. 

“ As for the women, he fair cast a glamour 
over them; they’re doin’ nothin’ noo but 
speak aboot this body an’ the ither he 
cured, an’ hoo he aye had a comfortin’ word 
for sick folk. Women have no discernment, 
Milton; to hear them speak ye would think 
MacLure had been a religious man like your- 
self, although, as ye said, he was little more 
than a Gallio. 

“ Bell Baxter was clamorin’ away in the 
shop to such an extent aboot the way Mac- 
Lure brought round Saunders when he had 
the fever, that I went oot at the door, I was 
that disgusted, an’ I’m told when Tammas 
Mitchell heard the news in the smithy he 
was just on the point o’ cryin’. 

“ The smith said that he was thinkin’ o’ 
Annie’s trouble, but onyway I call it real 
bairnly. It’s no like Drumtochty; ye’re 
settin’ an example, Milton, wi’ your com- 
posure. But I mind ye took the doctor’s 
measure as soon as ye came into the parish.” 

It is the penalty of a cynic that he must 
have some relief for his secret grief, and 
Milton began to weary of life in Jamie’s 
hands during those days. 

Drumtochty was not observant in the mat- 
ter of health, but they had grown sensitive 
about Dr. MacLure, and remarked in the 
kirk-yard all summer that he was failing. 

“ He was aye spare,” said Hillocks, “ an’ 
lie’s been sore twisted for the last twenty 
year, but I never mind him bowed till the 


85 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


year. An’ he’s goin’ into small bulk, an’ I 
do not like that, neighbors. 

“ The Glen wouldn’t do weel withoot 
Weelum MacLure, an’ he’s no as young as 
he was. Man, Drumsheugh, ye might wile 
him off to the salt water atween the turnip- 
time and the harvest. He’s been workin’ 
forty year for a holiday, an’ it’s aboot due.” 

Drumsheugh was full of tact, and met 
MacLure quite by accident on the road- 

“ Saunders ’ill no need me till the shearin’ 
begins,” he explained to the doctor, “ an’ 
I’m goin’ to Brochty for a turn o’ the hot 
baths; they’re fine for the rheumatics. 

“ Will ye no come wi’ me for auld lang 
syne? It’s lonesome for a solitary man, an' 
it would do ye good.” 

“ No, no, Drumsheugh,” said MacLure, 
who understood perfectly. “ I’ve done all 
these years withoot a break, an’ I’m loath 
to be takin’ holidays at the tail end. 

“ I’ll no be mony months wi’ ye a’the- 
gither noo, an’ I’m wantin’ to spend all the 
time I have in the Glen. Ye see yourself 
that I’ll soon be gettin’ my long rest, an’ I’ll 
no deny that I’m wearyin’ for it.” 

As autumn passed into winter, the Glen 
noticed that the doctor’s hair had turned 
gray, and that his manner had lost all its 
roughness. A feeling of secret gratitude 
filled their hearts, and they united in a con- 
spiracy of attention. Annie Mitchell knitted 
a hugh comforter in red and white, which 
the doctor wore in misery for one whole day, 
out of respect for Annie, and then hung in 
his sitting-room as a wall ornament. Hil- 
locks used to intercept him with hot drinks, 
and one drifting day compelled him to shel- 
ter till the storm abated. Flora Campbell 
brought a wonderful compound, much tasted 
in Auchindarroch, for his cough, and the 
mother of young Burnbrae filled his cup- 
board with black jam, as a healing measure. 
Jamie Soutar seemed to have an endless 
series of jobs in the doctor’s direction, and 
looked in “just to rest himself” in the 
kitchen. 


MacLure had been slowly taking in the 
situation, and at last he unburdened himself 
one night to Jamie. 

“What ails the folk, think ye? for they’re 
aye lecturin’ me noo to take care o’ the wet, 
an’ to wrap myself up, an’ there’s no a week 
but they’re sendin’ bit presents to the house, 
till I’m fair ashamed.” 

‘ Oh, I’ll explain that in a minute,” an- 
swered Jamie, “ for I know the Glen weel. 
Ye see they’re just tryin’ the Scripture plan 
o’ heapin’ coals o’ fire on your head. 

“ Here ye’ve been neglectin’ the folk in 
sickness, an’ lettin’ them die afore their 
friends’ eyes withoot a fight, an’ refusin’ to 
go to a poor woman in her trouble, an’ 
frightenin’ the bairns — no, I’m no done — 
an’ scourgin’ us wi’ fees, an’ livin’ yourself 
on the fat o’ the land. 

“ Ye’ve been carryin’ on this trade ever 
since your father died, and the Glen didn’t 
notice. But, my word, they’ve found ye oot 
at last, an’ they’re goin’ to make ye suffer 
for all your ill usage. Do ye understand 
noo?” said Jamie savagely. 

For a while MacLure was silent, and then 
he only said: 

“ It’s little I did for the poor bodies; but 
ye have a good heart, Jamie, a real good 
heart.” 

It was a bitter December Sabbath, and the 
fathers were settling the affairs of the par- 
ish ankle-deep in snow, when MacLure’ s old 
housekeeper told Drumsheugh that the doc- 
tor was not able to rise, and wished to see 
him in the afternoon. 

“ Ay, ay,” said Hillocks, shaking his 
head, and that day Drumsheugh omitted 
four pews with the ladle, while Jamie was 
so vicious on the way home that none could 
endure him. 

Janet had lighted a fire in the unused grate, 
and hung a plaid by the window to break 
the power of the cruel north wind, but the 
bare room with its half a dozen bits of fur- 
niture and a worn strip of carpet, and the 
outlook upon the snow drifted up to the 


86 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


second pane of the window and the black 
firs laden with their icy burden, sent a chill 
to Drumsheugh’s heart. 

The doctor had weakened sadly, and could 
hardly lift his head, but his face lit up at 
the sight of his visitor, and the big hand, 
which was now quite refined in its white- 
ness, came out from the bed-clothes with the 
old warm grip. 

“ Come in, man, and sit doon; it’s an awfu’ 
day to bring ye so far, but I knew ye 
wouldn’t grudge the travel. 

“ I wasn’t sure till last night, an’ then I 
felt it would not be long, an’ I took a 
wearyin’ this mornin’ to see ye. 

“ We’ve been friends since we were lad- 
dies at the old school in the firs, an’ I 
would like ye to be wi’ me at the end. 
Ye’ll stay the night, Paitrick, for auld lang 
syne?” 

Drumsheugh was much shaken, and the 
sound of his Christian name, which he had 
not heard since his mother’s death, gave 
him a shiver as if one had spoken from the 
other world. 

“ It’s most awfu’ to hear ye speakin’ aboot 
dyin’, Weelum. I cannot bear it. We ’ill 
have the Muirtown doctor up, an’ ye ’ill be 
aboot again in no time. 

“ Ye haven’t ony sore trouble; ye’re just 
worn oot wi’ hard work an’ needin’ a rest. 
Do not say ye’re goin’ to leave us, Weelum; 
we can’t do withoot ye in Drumtochty;” and 
Drumsheugh looked wistfully for some word 
of hope. 

“ No, no, Paitrick; nothin’ can be done, an’ 
it’s too late to send for ony doctor. There’s 
a knock that cannot be mistaken, an’ I heard 
it last night. I’ve fought death for ither folk 
more than forty year, but my own time has 
come at last. 

“ I’ve no trouble worth mentionin’ — a bit 
touch o’ bronchitis — an’ I’ve had a grand 
constitution, but I’m fair worn oot, Paitrick; 
that’s my complaint, an’ it’s past curin’.” 

Drumsheugh went over to the fireplace, 
and for a while did nothing but break up 


the smoldering peats, w T hose smoke power- 
fully affected his nose and eyes. 

“ When ye’re ready, Paitrick, there’s two 
or three little bits o’ business I would like 
ye to look after, an’ I’ll tell ye aboot them 
as long’s my head’s clear. 

“ I didn’t keep books, as ye know, for I 
aye had a good memory, so nobody ’ill be 
hurried for money after my death, and ye 
’ill have no accounts to collect. 

“ But the folk are honest in Drumtochty, 
an’ they ’ill be offerin’ ye silver, an’ I'll 
give ye my mind aboot it. If it be a poor 
body, tell her to keep it, and get a bit plaidie 
wi’ tne money, an’ she ’ill maybe think o’ 
her old doctor at a time. If it be a well-to- 
do man, take half of what he offers, for a 
Drumtochty man would scorn to be mean 
in such circumstances; an’ if ony body needs 
a doctor an’ cannot pay for him, see that 
he’s no left to die when I’m oot o’ the 
road.” 

“ No fear o’ that as long as I’m livin’, 
Weelum; that hundred’s still to the fore, ye 
know, an’ I’ll take care it’s weel spent. 

“ Yon was the best job we ever did the- 
gither, an’ duckin’ Saunders; ye ’ill no for- 
get that night, Weelum ” — a gleam came 
into the doctor’s eyes — “ to say nothin’ o’ 
the Higlilan’ fling.” 

The remembrance of that great victory 
came upon Drumsheugh and tried his forti- 
tude. 

“ What ’ill become o’ us when ye’re no 
here to give a hand in time o’ need? We ’ill 
take ill wi’ a stranger that doesn’t know one 
o’ us from anither.” 

“ It’s all for the best, Paitrick, an’ ye ’ill 
see that in a while. I’ve known fine that my 
day was over, an’ that ye should have a 
younger man. 

“ I did what I could to keep up wi’ the 
new medicine, but I had little time for 
readin’ an’ none for travelin’. 

“ I’m the last o’ the old school, an’ I know 
as weel as onybody that I wasn’t so dainty 
and fine-mannered as the town doctors. Ye 


87 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


took me as I was, an’ nobody ever cast np 
to me that I was a plain man. No, no; ye’ve 
been real kind an’ considerate all these 
years.” 

“ Weelum, if ye carry on such nonsense 
ony longer,” interrupted Drumsheugh, husk- 
ily, “ I’ll leave the house; I can’t stand 
it.” 

“ It’s the truth, Paitrick, but we ’ill go on 
wi’ oor work, for I’m failin’ fast. 


speak like this to me. Where would Jess go 
but to Drumsheugh? She ’ill have her run 
o’ rack an’ manger so long as she lives; the 
Glen wouldn’t like to see anither man on 
Jess, an’ no man ’ill ever touch the old 
mare.” 

“ Don’t mind me, Paitrick, for I expected 
this; but ye know we’re no very smart wi’ 
oor tongues in Drumtochty, an’ do not tell 
all that’s in oor hearts. 



“ Give Janet ony sticks o’ furniture she 
needs to furnish a house, an’ sell everything 
else to pay the undertakei an’ gravedigger. 
If the new doctor be a young laddie an’ no 
very rich, ye might let him have the books 
an’ instruments; it ’ill aye be a help. 

“ But I wouldn’t like ye to sell Jess, for 
she’s been a faithfu’ servant an’ a friend 
too. There’s a note or two in that drawer 
I saved, an’ if ye knew ony man that would 
give her a bit o’ grass and a stall in his 
stable till she followed her maister — ” 

“ Confound ye, Weelum!” broke out 
Drumsheugh. “ It’s doonright cruel o’ ye to 


“ Weel, that’s all that I mind, an’ the rest 
I leave to yourself. I’ve neither kith nor 
kin to bury me, so you an’ the neighbors ’ill 
need to let me doon; but if Tammas Mitchell 
or Saunders be standin’ near an’ lookin’ as 
they would like a cord, give it to them, 
Paitrick. They’re both quiet fellows an’ 
haven’t much to say, but Tammas has a 
grand heart, and there’s worse folk in the 
Glen than Saunders. 

“ I’m gettin’ drowsy, an’ I’ll no be able to 
follow ye soon, I doubt; would ye read a bit 
to me afore I fall over? 

“ Ye ’ill find my mither’s Bible on the 


88 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSH 


drawers’ head, but ye ’ill need to come close 
to the bed, for I’m no hearin’ or seein’ so 
weel as I was when ye came.” 

Drumsheugh put on his spectacles and 
searched for a comfortable Scripture, while 
the light of the lamp fell on his shaking 
hands and the doctor’s face, where the 
shadow was now settling. 

“ My mither aye wanted this read to her 
when she was weak,” and Drumsheugh 
began: 

“ ‘ In my Father’s house are many man- 
sions,’ ” but MacLure stopped him. 

“ It’s a bonnie word, an’ your mither was 
a saint; but it’s no for the like o’ me. It’s 
too good; I daren’t take it. 

“ Shut the book an’ let it open itself, an’ 
ye ’ill get a bit I’ve been readin’ every night 
the last month.” 

Then Drumsheugh found the parable 
wherein the Master tells us what God thinks 
of a Pharisee and of a penitent sinner, till 
he came to the words: “ And the publican, 
standing afar off, would not lift up so much 
as his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his 
breast, saying, God be merciful to me a 
sinner.” 

“ That might have been written for me, 
Paitrick, or ony ither old sinner that has 
finished his life an’ has nothin’ to say for 
himself. 

“ It w r asn’t easy for me to get to kirk, 
but I could have managed wi’ a stretch, 
an’ I used langidge I shouldn’t, an’ I might 
have been gentler, an’ no have been so short 
in the temper. I see ’t all noo. 

“ It’s too late to mend, but ye ’ill maybe 
just say to the folk that I was sorry, an’ I’m 
hopin’ that the Almighty ’ill have mercy 
on me. 

“ Could ye . . . put up a bit prayer, 
Paitrick?” 

“ I haven’t the words,” said Drumsheugh, 
in great distress; “ would ye like to send 
for the minister?” 

“ It’s no the time for that noo, an’ I 
would rather have yourself — just what’s in 


your heart, Paitrick; the Almighty ’ill know 
the rest himself.” 

So Drumsheugh knelt and prayed with 
many pauses: 

“ Almighty God . . . don’t be hard on 
Weelum MacLure, for he’s no been hard wi’ 
onybody in Drumtochty. ... Be kind to 
him, as he’s been to us all for forty year. 
. . . We’re all sinners afore thee. . . . 
Forgive him what he’s done wrong, an’ 
don’t cast it up to him. . . . Mind the 
folk he’s helped . . . the women an’ 
bairnies . . . an’ give him a welcome 
home, for he’s sore needin’ ’t after all his 
w T ork. . . . Amen.” 

“ Thank ye, Paitrick, an’ good-niglit to ye. 
My own true friend, give ’s your hand, for 
I’ll maybe not know ye again. 

“ Noo, I’ll say my mither’s prayer an’ have 
a sleep, but ye’ll no leave me till all is 
over.” 

Then he repeated, as he had done every 
night of his life: 

“ This night I lay me down to sleep, 

T pray the Lord my soul to keep, 

And if I die before I wake, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take.” 

He was sleeping quietly when the wind 
drove the snow against the window with a 
sudden “ swish,” and he instantly awoke, 
so to say, in his sleep. Some one needed 
him. 

“Are ye from Glen Urtach?” and an un- 
heard voice seemed to have answered him. 

“Worse, is she, an’ sufferin’ awfu’; that’s 
no lightsome; ye did right to come. 

“ The front door’s drifted up; go round 
to the back, an’ ye ’ill get into the kitchen; 
I’ll be ready in a minute. 

“ Give ’s a hand wi’ the lantern when I’m 
saddlin’ Jess, an’ ye needn’t come on till 
daylight; I know the road.” 

Then he was away in his sleep on some 
errand of mercy, and struggling through the 
storm. 

“ It’s a coarse night, Jess, an’ heavy trav- 
elin’; can ye see afore ye, lass? for I’m clean 


A DOCTOR OF TEE OLD SCHOOL. 


confused wi’ the snow; wait a wee till I find 
the division o’ the roads; it’s aboot here, 
back or forward. 

“ Steady, lass, steady; don’t plunge; it’s a 
drift we’re in, but ye’re no sinkin’; . . . 
Up, noo. . . . There ye are on the road 
again. 

“ Eh, it’s deep the night, an’ hard on us 
both, but there’s a poor woman might die 
if we don’t struggle through. . . . That’s 
it; ye know fine what I’m sayin’. 

“We ’ill have to leave the road here, an’ 
take to the moor. Sandie ’ill no be able to 
leave the wife alone to meet us. . . . Feel 
for yourself, lass, an’ keep oot o’ the holes. 

“ Yon’s the house, black in the snow. 
Sandie, man, ye frightened us; I don’t see 
ye behind the dyke; hoo’s the wife?” 

After a while he began again: 

“ Ye’re fair done, Jess, an’ so I am myself; 
we’re both gettin’ old, an’ do not take so 
weel wi’ the night work. 

“ We ’ill soon be home noo; this is the 
black wood, an’ it’s no long after that; we’re 
ready for oor beds, Jess. . . . Aye, ye 
like a clap at a time; mony a mile we’ve 
gone thegither. 

“ Yon’s the light in the kitchen window; 
no wonder ye’re neighin’. . . . It’s been 
a stiff journey; I’m tired, lass. . . . I’m 
tired to death.” And the voice died into 
silence. 

Drumsheugh held his friend’s hand, which 
now and again tightened in his, and, as he 
watched, a change came over the face on 
the pillow beside him. The lines of weari- 
ness disappeared, as if God’s hand had 
passed over it, and peace began to gather 
round the closed eyes. 

The doctor has forgotten the toil of later 
years, and has gone back to his boyhood. 

“The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want,” 


89 

he repeated, till he came to the last verse, 
and then he hesitated. 

“ ‘ Goodness and mercy all my life 
Shall surely follow me.’ 

“ Follow me . . . and . . . and 

. . . What’s next? Hither said I was to 
have it ready when she came. 

“ ‘ I’ll come afore ye go to sleep, Willie, 
but ye ’ill no get your kiss unless ye finish 
the Psalm.’ 

“ And ... in God’s house . . . for 
evermore my . . . hoo does it run? I 
can’t mind the next word. . . . My, 
my — 

“ It’s too dark noo to read it, an’ mither 
’ill soon be cornin’.” 

Drumsheugh, in an agony, whispered into 
his ear, “ ‘ My dwelling-place,’ Weelum.” 

“ That’s it, that’s it all noo; who said it? 

“ ‘ And in God’s house for evermore 
My dwelling-place shall be.’ 

“ I’m ready noo, an’ I’ll get my kiss when 
mither comes; I wish she would come, for 
I’m tired, an’ wantin’ to sleep. 

“ Yon’s her step . . . an’ she’s carryin’ 
a light in her hand; I see it through the door. 

“ Mither, I knew ye wouldn’t forget your 
laddie, for ye promised to come, an’ I’ve 
finished my Psalm. 

“ * And in God’s house for evermore 
My dwelling-place shall be.’ 

“ Give me the kiss, mither, for I’ve been 
waitin’ for ye, an’ I’ll soon be asleep.” 

The gray morning light fell on Drums- 
heugh, still holding his friend’s cold hand, 
and staring at a hearth where the fire had 
died down into white ashes; but the peace 
on the doctor’s face was of one who rested 
from his labors. 


90 


BESIDE TEE BOH HIE BRIER BUSH. 


THE MOURNING OF THE GLEN. 

OCT OR MAC LURE 
was buried during 
the great snowstorm, 
which is still spoken 
of, and will remain 
the standard of snow- 
fall in Drumtochty 
for the century. The 
snow was deep on the 
Monday, and the men who gave notice of his 
funeral had hard work to reach the doctor's 
distant patients. On Tuesday morning it 
began to fall again in heavy, fleecy flakes, 
and continued till Thursday, and then on 
Thursday the north wind rose and swept the 
snow into the hollows of the roads that 
went to the upland farms, and built it into 
a huge bank at the mouth of Glen Urtach, 
and laid it across our main roads in drifts of 
every size and the most lovely shapes, and 
tilled up crevices in the hills to the depth of 
fifty feet. 

On Friday morning the wind had sunk to 
passing gusts that powdered your coat with 
white, and the sun was shining on one of 
those winter landscapes no townsman can 
imagine and no countryman ever forgets. 
The Glen, from end to end and side to side, 
was clothed in a glistering mantle white as 
no fuller on earth could white it, that flung 
its skirts over the clumps of trees and scat- 
tered farmhouses, and was only divided 
where the Tochty ran with black, swollen 
stream. The great moor rose and fell in 
swelling billows of snow that arched them- 
selves over the burns, running deep in the 
mossy ground, and hid the black, peat-bogs 
with a thin, dangerous crust. Beyond, the 
hills northwards and westwards stood high 
in white majesty, save where the black 
crags of Glen Urtach broke the line, and, 
above our lower Grampians, we caught 
glimpses of the distant peaks that lifted 
their heads in holiness unto God. 

It seemed to me a fitting day for William 


MacLure’s funeral, rather than summer- 
time, with its flowers and golden corn. He 
had not been a soft man, nor had he lived 
an easy life, and now he was to be laid to 
rest annd the austere majesty of winter, yet 
in the shining of the sun. Jamie Soutar, 
with whom I toiled across the Glen, did 
not think with me, and was gravely con- 
cerned. 

“ Nae doubt it’s a grand sight; the like o’t 
is no given us twice in a generation, an’ nae 
king was ever carried to his tomb in such a 
cathedral. But it’s the folk I'm considerin’, 
how they ’ill bear it; it’s hard enough for 
them that’s on the road, an’ it’s clean im- 
possible for the rest. 

“ They ’ill do their best, every man o’ 
them, ye may depend on that; an’ had it 
been open weather there wouldn’t have been 
six able-bodied men missin’. 

“ I was mad at them, because they never 
said onytliing when he was livin’, but they 
felt, for all that,, what he had done, an’, I 
think, he knew it afore he died. 

“ He had just one fault, to my thinkin’, 
for I never judged the w T orse o’ him for his 
touch o’ roughness — good trees have 
gnarled bark — but he thought too little o’ 
himsel’. 

“Noo, if I had asked him how mony folk 
would come to his beerial, he would have 
said, ‘ They ’ill be Drumsheugh an’ yersel’, 
an’ maybe two or three neighbors besides 
the minister,’ an’ the fact is that no man in 
oor time would have such a gatherin’ if it 
werena for the storm. 

“ Ye see,” said Jamie, who had been count- 
ing heads all morning, “ there’s six shep- 
herds in Glen Urtach — they’re shut up 
fast; an’ there might have been a good half 
dozen from Dunleith way, an’ I’m told 
there’s no road; and there’s the high Glen, 
no man could cross the moor the day, an’ 
it’s eight mile round;” and Jamie proceeded 
to review the Glen in every detail of age, 
driftiness of road and strength of body, till 
we arrived at the doctor’s cottage, when he 



A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 01 


had settled on a reduction of fifty through 
stress of weather. 

Drumsheugh was acknowledged as chief 
mourner by the Glen, and received us at the 
gate with a labored attempt at everyday 
manners. 

“ Ye’ve had heavy travelin’, I doot, an’ 
ye ’ill be cold. It’s hard weather for the 
sheep, an’ I’m thinkin’ this ’ill be a feedin’ 
storm. 

“ There was no use tryin’ to dig oot the 
front door last night, for it would have been 
drifted up again before mornin’. We’ve 
cleared away the snow at the back for 
prayer; ye ’ill get in at the kitchen door. 

“ There’s a number of Dunleith men — ” 

“Who!” cried Jamie in an instant. 

“ Dunleith men,” said Drumsheugh. 

“Do ye mean they’re here? Where are 
they?” 

“ Dryin’ themsel’s at the fire, an’ no witli- 
oot need; one o’ them went over the head 
in a drift, an’ his neighbors had to pull him 
oot. 

“ It took them a good four hours to get 
across, an’ it was hard w r ork; they liked him 
weel down that way. An’ Jamie man,” — 
here Drumsheugh’s voice changed its note, 
and his public manner disappeared — “ what 
do ye think o’ this? Every man o’ them has 
on his blacks.” 

“ It’s more than could be expected,” said 
Jamie; “ but where do yon men come from, 
Drumsheugh?” 

Two men in plaids were descending the 
hill behind the doctor’s cottage, taking three 
feet at a stride, and carrying long staffs in 
their hands. 

“ They’re Glen Urtach men, Jamie, for one 
o’ them was at Kildrummie fair wi’ sheep; 
but boo they’ve managed to get doon passes 
me.” 

“It can’t be, Drumsheugh!” said Jamie, 
greatly excited. “ Glen Urtac-h’s barred up 
wi’ snow like a locked door. 

“Ye’re no surely from the Glen, lads?” as 
the men leaped the dyke and crossed to the 


back door, the snow falling from their 
plaids as they walked. 

“We’re that, an’ no mistake, but I thought 
we would be beaten one place, eh, Charlie? 
I’m no so weel acquaint wi’ the hill on 
this side, an’ there were some dangerous 
drifts.” 

“ It was grand o’ ye to make the attempt,” 
said Drumsheugh, “ an’ I’m glad ye’re 
safe.” 

“ He came through as bad himsel’ to help 
my wife,” was Charlie’s reply. 

“ They’re three more Urtach shepherds 
’ill come in soon; they’re from Upp_er Urtach, 
an’ we saw them fordin’ the river; my 
certes, it took them all their time, for it was 
up to their waists an’ rinnin’ like a mill- 
race, but they joined hands an’ came over 
fine.” And the Urtach men went in to the 
fire. 

The Glen began to arrive in twos and 
threes, and Jamie, from a point of vantage 
at the gate, and under an appearance of 
utter indifference, checked his roll till even 
he was satisfied. 

“ Weelum MacLure ’ill have the beerial he 
deserves in spite o’ snow an’ drifts; it passes 
all to see hoo they’ve gathered from far an’ 
near. 

“ I’m thinkin’ ye can collect them for the 
minister noo, Drumsheugh. Everybody’s 
here except the high Glen, an’ we mustn’t 
look for them.” 

“ Don’t be so sure o’ that, Jamie. Yon’s 
terrible like them on the road, wi’ Whinnie 
at their head;” and so it was, twelve in all, 
only old Adam Ross absent, detained by 
force, being eiglity-two years of age. 

“ It would have been temptin’ Providence 
to cross the moor,” Whinnie explained, “ an’ 
it’s a long step round. I doot we’re the 
last.” 

“ See, Jamie,” said Drumsheugh, as he 
went to the house, “ if there be onybody in 
sight afore we begin; we must make allow- 
ances the day, wi’ two feet o’ snow on the 
ground, to say nothin’ o’ drifts.” 


92 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BBIER BUSK 


“ There’s somethin’ at the turnin’, an’ it’s 
no folk; it’s a machine o’ some kind or ither 
— maybe a bread cart that’s fought its way 
up.” 

“ No. it’s no that; there’s two horses, one 
afore the ither. If it’s no a dog-cart wi’ two 
men in the front! they 'ill be cornin’ to the 
beerial.” 

“ What would ye say, Jamie,” Hillocks 
suggested, “ but it might be some o’ the 
Muirtown doctors? They were awfu’ inti- 
mate wi’ MacLure.” 

“ It’s no Muirtown doctors,” cried Jamie, 
in great exultation, “ nor ony ither doctors. 
I know those horses, and who's behind 
them. Quick, man, Hillocks, stop the folk, 
an’ tell Drumsheugli to come oot, for Lord 
Kilspindie has come up from Muirtown 
Castle.” 

Jamie himself slipped behind, and did not 
wish to be seen. 

“ It’s the respect he’s gettin’ the day, from 
high an’ low,” was Jamie’s husky apology; 
“ to think o’ them fightin’ their way down 
from Glen Urtach, an’ toilin’ roond from the 
high Glen, an’ his lordship drivin’ through 
the drifts all the road from Muirtown, just 
to honor Weelum’s MacLure’ s beerial. 

“ It’s no ceremony the day, ye may trust 
to it; it’s the heart brought the folk, an’ ye 
can see it in their faces; every man has his 
own reason, an’ he’s thinkin’ on’t, though 
he’s speakin’ o’ nothin’ but the storm. He’s 
mindin’ the day Weelum pulled him oot 
from the jaws o’ death, or the night he 
saved the good wife in her hour o’ trouble. 

“ That’s why they put on their blacks this 
mornin’ afore it was light, an’ wrestled 
through the snow-drifts at risk o’ life. 
Drumtochty folk can’t say much, it’s an 
awfu’ pity, an’ they ’ill do their best to 
show nothin’, but I can read it all in their 
eyes. 

“ But woe’s me,” — and Jamie broke down 
utterly behind a fir tree, so tender a thing 
is a cynic’s heart — “ that folk ’ill take a 
man’s be'st work all his days withoot a 


word, an’ no do him honor till he dies. Oh, 
if they had only gathered like this just once 
when he w r as livin’, and let him see he 
hadn’t labored in vain! His reward has 
come too late, too late!” 

During Jamie’s vain regret, the Castle 
trap, bearing the marks of a wild passage 
in the snow-covered w r heels, a broken shaft 
tied with rope, a twisted lamp, and the 
panting horses, pulled up between two rows 
of farmers, and Drumsheugh received his 
lordship with evident emotion. 

“ My lord, ... we never thought o’ 
this; . . . an’ such a road!” 

“ How are you, Drumsheugh? and how are 
you all this wintry day? That’s how I’m 
half an hour late; it took us four hours stiff 
work for sixteen miles, mostly in the drifts, 
of course.” 

“ It was good o’ your lordship to make 
such an effort, an’ the whole Glen will be 
gratefu’ to ye, for ony kindness to him is 
kindness to us.” 

“ You make too much of it Drumsheugh,” 
and the clear, firm voice was heard of all; 
“it would have taken more than a few snow- 
drifts to keep me from showing my respect 
to William MacLure’s memory.” 

When all had gathered in a half circle be- 
fore the kitchen door, Lord Kilspindie came 
out — every man noticed he had left his 
overcoat, and was in black, like the Glen — 
and took a place in the middle, with Drums- 
heugh and Burnbrae, his two chief tenants, 
on the right and left, and, as the minister 
appeared, every man bared his head. 

The doctor looked on the company — a 
hundred men such as for strength and 
gravity you could hardly have matched in 
Scotland — standing out in picturesque re- 
lief against the white background, and he 
said: 

“ It’s a bitter day, friends, and some of 
you are old; perhaps it might be wise to 
cover your heads before I begin to pray.” 

Lord Kilspindie, standing erect and gray- 
headed between the two old men, replied: 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 93 


“We thank you, Dr. Davidson, for your 
thoughtfulness; but he endured many a 
storm in our service, and we are not afraid 
of a few minutes’ cold at his funeral.’’ 

A look flashed round the stern faces, and 
was reflected from the minister, who 
seemed to stand higher. 

His prayer, we noticed with critical appre- 
ciation, was composed for the occasion, and 


vant departed.” Again the same sigh, and 
the minister said amen. 

The undertaker stood in the doorway with- 
out speaking, and four stalwart men came 
forward. They were the volunteers that 
would lift the coffin and carry it for the first 
stage. One was Tammas, Annie Mitchell’s 
man; and another was Saunders Baxter, for 
whose life MacLure had his great fight with 



All gathered in a half circle before the kitchen door.— See page 92. 


the first part was a thanksgiving to God for 
the life-work of our doctor, wherein each 
clause was a reference to his services and 
sacrifices. No one moved or said amen — it 
had been strange with us — but when every 
man had heard the gratitude of his dumb 
heart offered to heaven, there was a great 
sigh. 

After which the minister prayed that we 
might have grace to live as this man had 
done from youth to old age, not for himself, 
but for others, and that we might be fol- 
lowed to our grave by somewhat of “ that 
love wherewith we mourn this day thy ser- 


death; and the third was the Glen Urtach 
shepherd for whose wife’s sake MacLure 
suffered a broken leg and three fractured 
ribs in a drift; and the fourth, a Dunleith 
man, had his own reasons of remembrance. 

“ He’s far lighter than ye would expect 
for so big a man — there wasn’t much left o’ 
him, ye see — but the road is heavy, and I’ll 
change ye after the first half mile.” 

“ Ye needn’t trouble yoursel’,” said the 
man from Glen Urtach; “there ’ill be no 
change in the carry in’ the day;” and Tam- 
mas was thankful someone had saved him 
speaking. 



94 


BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH. 


Surely no funeral is like unto that of a 
doctor for pathos, and a peculiar sadness fell 
on that company as his body was carried 
out, who, for nearly half a century, had 
been their help in sickness, and had beaten 
back Death time after time from their door. 
Death after all was victor, for the man that 
saved them had not been able to save him- 
self. 

As the coffin passed the stable door a horse 
neighed within, and every man looked at his 
neighbor. It was his old mare crying to her 
master. 

Jamie slipped into the stable, and went up 
into the stall. 

“ Poor lass! ye’re no goin’ wi’ him the day, 
an’ ye ’ill never see him again; ye’ve had 
your last ride thegither, an’ ye were true to 
the end.” 

After the funeral Drumsheugh came him- 
self for Jess, and took her to his farm. 
Saunders made a bed for her with soft dry 
straw, and prepared for her supper such 
things as horses love. Jess would neither 
take food nor rest, but moved uneasily in 
her stall, and seemed to be waiting for some- 
one that never came. No man knows what a 
horse or a dog understands and feels, for 
God hath not given them our speech. If any 
footstep was heard in the courtyard, she 
began to neigh, and was always looking 
around as the door opened. But nothing 
would tempt her to eat, and in the night- 
time Drumsheugh heard her crying as if she 
expected to be taken out for some sudden 
journey. The Kildrummie veterinary came 
to see her, and said that nothing could be 
done when it happened after this fashion 
with an old horse. 

“ I’ve seen it once afore,” he said. ** If 
she were a Christian instead o’ a horse, 
ye might say she was dyin’ o’ a broken 
heart.” 

He recommended that she should be shot 
to end her misery, but no man could be 
found in the Glen to do the deed, and Jess 
relieved them of the trouble. When Drums- 


heugh went to the stable on Monday morn- 
ing, a week after Dr. MacLure fell asleep, 
Jess was resting at last, but her eyes were 
open, and her face turned to the door. 

“ She was all the wife he had,” said 
Jamie, as he rejoined the procession, “ an’ 
they loved one anitlier weel.” 

The black thread wound itself along the 
whiteness of the Glen, the coffin first, with 
his lordship and Drumsheugh behind, and 
the others as they pleased, but in closer 
ranks than usual, because the snow on 
either side was deep, and because this was 
not as other funerals. They could see the 
women standing at the door of every house 
on the hillside, and weeping, for each family 
had some good reason in forty years to re- 
member MacLure. When Bell Baxter saw 
Saunders alive, and the coffin of the doctor 
that saved him on her man’s shoulder, she 
bowed her head on the dyke, and the bairns 
in the village made such a wail for him they 
loved that the men nearly disgraced them- 
selves. 

“ I’m glad we’re through that, at ony 
rate,” said Hillocks; “ he was awfu’ taken 
up wi’ the bairns, considerin’ he had none o’ 
his own.” 

There was only one drift on. the road be- 
tween his cottage and kirkyard, and it had 
been cut early that morning. 

Before daybreak Saunders had roused the 
lads in the servants’ quarters, and they had 
set to work by the light of lanterns with such 
good will that, when Drumsheugh came 
down to engineer a circuit for the funeral, 
there was a fair passage, with walls of snow 
twelve feet high on either side. 

“ Man, Saunders,” he said, “ this was a 
kind thought, and real well done.” 

But Saunders’ only reply was this: 

“ Mony a time he’s had to go roond; he 
might as weel have an open road for his last 
travel.” 

When the coffin was laid down at the 
mouth of the grave, the only blackness in 
the white kirkyard, Tarnmas Mitchell did 


A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 


95 


the most beautiful thing in all his life. He 
knelt down^and carefully wiped off the snow 
the wind had blown upon the coffin, and 
which had covered the name, and when he 
had done this he disappeared behind the 
others, so that Drumsheugli could hardly 
find him to take a cord. For these were the 
eight that buried Dr. MacLure — Lord Kil- 
spindie at the head as landlord and Drums- 
heugh at the feet as his friend; the two 
ministers of the parish cdme first on the 
right and left; then Burnbrae and Hillocks 
of the farmers, and Saunders and Tammas 
for the plowmen. So the Glen he loved laid 
him to rest. 

When the sexton had finished his work 
and the turf had been spread, Lord Ivil- 
spindie spoke: 

“ Friends of Drumtochty, it would not be 
right that we should part in silence and no 
man say what is in every heart. We have 
buried the remains of one that served this 
Glen with a devotion that has known no 
reserve, and a kindliness that never failed, 
for more than forty years. I have seen 
many brave men in my day, but no man in 
the trenches of Sebastopol carried himself 
more knightly than William MacLure. You 
will never have heard from his lips what I 
may tell you to-day, that my father secured 
for him a valuable post in his younger days, 
and he preferred to work among his own 
people; and I wished to do many things for 
him when he was old, but he would have 
nothing for himself. He will never be for- 
gotten w T hile one of us lives, and I pray that 
all doctors everywhere may share his spirit. 
If it be your pleasure I shall erect a cross 


above his grave and shall ask my old friend 
and companion, Dr. Davidson, your minister, 
to choose the text to be inscribed.” 

“ We thank you, Lord Ivilspindie,” said the 
doctor, “ for your presence with us in our 
sorrow and your tribute to the memory of 
William MacLure, and I choose this for his 
text: 

“‘Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his 
friends.’ ” 

Milton was, at that time, held in the bonds 
of a very bitter theology, and his indignation 
w T as stirred by this unqualified eulogium. 

“ No doubt Dr. MacLure had many natural 
virtues, an’ he did his work weel, but it 
was a pity he didn’t make more profession o’ 
religion.” 

“ When William MacLure appears before 
the Judge, Milton,” said Lachlan Campbell, 
w’ho that day spoke his last words in public, 
and they w T ere in defence of charity, “ he 
w T ill not be asking him about hiss professions, 
for the doctor’s judgment hass been ready 
long ago; and it iss a good judgment, and 
you and I wail be happy men if we get the 
like of it. 

“ It iss written in the Gospel, but it iss 
William MacLure that will not be expect- 
ing it.” 

“What is’t, Lachlan?” asked Jamie Soutar 
eagerly. 

The old man, now very feeble, stood in the 
middle of the road, and his face, once so 
hard, was softened into a winsome tender- 
ness. 

“ ‘ Come, ye blessed of my Father . . . 
I was sick, and ye visited me.’ ” 


THE END. 


«/ 




Ubere grows a bonnie brier busb in our bail=$art>, 
Hnfc wbite are tbe blossoms on't in our feail=sar&.” 


vV \C/ 

$ ,y> 



70 86 













% * ,0- t 

«> ,0 * 

U> ^ 

>° v ^-' ./ c v*^\*°° v‘‘ Tr ’' , 'y l ...:v*» T “’ f c 




«* A ♦ 

• ^ : 
■=>^ 


A A 

* -.-^-A V % 

<2. '• . . • a <* *a.'. 5 ,g 

^ A> O « o * <$> . t I o 

O * * C, O 

* O' ^s^oOuY^v* *3%. - ^ + 

^ A o*C^alL*« +> <i 


4 °>v 

> w 



* A V -^ 

* £ % 



A G°"°* <* 

A<T . ^ , 

'A v* ; 



o \0 vV 

4,0 "° f° " 1# ^ 

% / .^W/1.*. A A . 
*# ■ , 



«V»\ -. ^ouu^ ° r S ^rv o 

■ * a v *$*> • sgtgfg. * y> 

< ^ .oa < 4 * 

^y c 0-0 * <{^ ^0$ . t I a ^ 


4° " 7 V . ^„„„_ 

.0 % ^ 
v "’ .y ... 


° 4° %. * 

O ' • 0 ^ 

°* ‘"A’ A 

V , « ••. "> 


% G- .»>a! c. 

“. *-*• o* . 

• * °^. : 

a *■•>'•' y '*«»« ’ ,.o 

> V »• A'. A ,0 




<* A 

• ♦ 

r vP G ' * 



9 o 


A a : 

/ A %■ \ 

'• . » * A <" * 

A V 0 O « O „ V 
A^ % # 




<G V *%, *'*.» 

, 0 * t « 1 ' ** ^o 

G ±af>/Y?7?^ “* O .1 _ 

- >^y .'«»« *tur$ 


* A A •"'..»* .G v A 

y a“^.^ y ^.-a/o 


- -.AAf,* y %y. o - o , 0 

' ^ V . % LVl'-v 



V’ ♦ 





? j - 0 'V 



4 V 
V % 

: ° ' 
o .C, * 

A • »/W\A * 0 

<£y ^ _ 

J ... .. A’ <► '..»* ,G V '..»* A 

0 o. a 4> <a»», <*» o* . • 1 "* ^o A V c 

0 ^ o * 


aV*** 

. _ / 4 * ^ • 

« v o, -c . * - A 

C° °o ji' .V^ % 



^ -V ' ^ 
*o K .°^ 

0 v\ *• ^ 





* ^ t> 

aV^ : 

'<$> * aV VN. « 

<u *3. *° • A 

■0- .-v-!.. % 


* A <* *avT* .G 5- ^ *'•".?•* a 

A 4, .A" “ % ^ . 0 * .• l J^« ^o„ . 4 > 

.1 .***.. /-^’- - > ■• 



* ^ oV^ 


\0 *?V ► 

V * 



3KMAN 
IERY INC. 


^ JAN 86 


N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 








